


Scarlet and Gold

by Ren



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-30
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2017-10-26 17:47:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/286159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ren/pseuds/Ren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean Winchester is about to start his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He's the new captain of the Gryffindor quidditch team, and his dream is to defeat the Hufflepuff champions and win the Cup. Things change when on the train Dean meets Castiel Milton, a Hufflepuff student. Cas is shy and awkward and completely without a sense of humour, Dean is rash and has a tendency to get into trouble. Despite their differences the two boys become friends, and Dean starts to realize that maybe the Quidditch Cup isn't what he wants the most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mail from Hogwarts

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU in which Harry Potter and his friends have been replaced with Dean and Cas and all the SPN cast, so there have been some changes in the dynamics between the Houses. I had the idea for this fic when I saw [Lettie's SPN fanart](http://lettiebobettie.tumblr.com/) which is seven kinds of adorable. This isn't strictly speaking a fanfic for her universe, since I borrowed many elements but also added and changed several others to fit with the story that I wanted to tell.
> 
> The full story is over 20,000 words, by the way, I wrote it in Italian first and now I'm translating it as fast as I can, which isn't very fast after all.

The letter from Hogwarts arrived at the end of July.

Sammy stared with wide eyes, his spoon halfway between his mouth and the bowl of cereals, while a huge spotted owl dropped two letters on the kitchen table. It was funny to see his brother look so flustered. Dean laughed, and almost choked on a piece of toast.

"Stupid birds," muttered John Winchester, brushing a couple of feathers from his breakfast. "I hope the neighbours won't complain again... Dean, stop making fun of your brother. If I'm not mistaken, when you got your first letter from Hogwarts you were so excited that you almost peed yourself."

When their father left the table to check the eggs and bacon, Dean stuck out his tongue at Sam.

"One of those is mine, isn't it?" Sam asked, too nervous to be upset at Dean's mockery.

"Of course it is, dummy," Dean said. "It's got your name on it and everything. _Mr Samuel Winchester, The Small Flat On The Fourth Floor, 2 Hunter Street, London_..."

Sam tore his envelope open with shaky hands and started reading the letter. Dean, in his fifth year by now, smirked with superiority and decided to take his time before opening his letter.

John served him a generous helping of fried eggs from the pan. "Aren't you going to read yours?" he asked Dean.

"I'm going to finish eating first," Dean said, his mouth full of eggs and toast. "It's going to be just the list of books anyway. I'm not going to become prefect, so whatever."

"That's because you're always getting into trouble," his father said. "This year, you try and behave. You've got to show a good example to your brother."

Dean rolled his eyes. "I don't _get into trouble_ , it's just that Professor Crowley hates me." he said. He refrained to add that Crowley hated him because in his first week of his first year Dean had covered the floor of his office with toad slime.

Before his father could recall that particular incident, he took his letter and opened it.

"It just says the usual stuff," he told his father as he scanned the letter. "The Deputy Headmaster is letting us know that term starts on September 1st, train leaves from King's Crossing as usual, there's a bunch of new books... Oh!" he exclaimed once he reached the bottom of the page.

Sam looked up from his letter, which he'd probably already read three times. "What?" he asked.

"I became captain of the Quidditch team!" Dean exclaimed.

That was the best possible news. Dean was Gryffindor's Seeker, and Quidditch was one of his very favourite things about Hogwarts. He was still upset at the thought of having been defeated by Hufflepuff in the last match and he couldn't wait for a rematch.

"This year we're going to win the Quidditch Cup," Dean said. His brother looked at him admiringly.

"I'm happy for you, Dean," his father said. "Sam, eat those eggs before they get cold. I've got to go to work."

Mr Winchester worked as a mechanic in a garage. He was a Muggle and didn't understand much about Hogwarts and about magic. He had married a witch, Dean and Sam's mum, but she had died many years ago. Dean didn't remember her very well.

Despite his feigned indifference, Dean was happy that Sam got his letter. They were both half-blood, and Sam had spent the last few weeks worrying that he didn't have enough magic to go to Hogwarts. Dean thought that even if it turned out that he was a Muggle, it wouldn't have been too bad: he could become a mechanic and help dad at the garage. But being a wizard and casting spells and playing Quidditch was much more fun.

Dean couldn't wait to go back to Hogwarts. The Winchesters lived in a Muggle neighbourhood, so he couldn't practice magic during the summer holidays. He couldn't even write to his friends very often, because his neighbours would have been suspicious if they kept seeing owls coming and going from his bedroom's window.

\---

Between one thing and the other, Dean had to wait until late in August before John found time to bring them to Diagon Alley to buy their school supplies.

Like every year, John complained about how hard it was to find parking in that part of the city. "It's a pain to get to this pub," he grumbled when they finally reached the Leaky Cauldron. "How does it work, again? Do we have to ask the owner to open the entrance at the back?"

"No need, I can do it," said Dean, who couldn't wait to do some magic. Sammy and his father followed him into the pub's tiny courtyard.

Dean took his wand from the pocket of his jeans and hit one of the bricks of the wall, which immediately opened to reveal the street and all its magic shops.

Sam had never been to Diagon Alley: the other times he was too little and John left him with Pastor Jim while he and Dean went shopping. Now Sam was looking around, his mouth wide open with stupor, and he kept glancing at Dean.

"When I have a wand, will I be able to cast spells like that, too?" he asked his brother.

"If you can learn how to do it," his brother replied.

"Stop bragging, Winchester," said a voice behind him. Dean recognized the speaker as Raphael Milton, one of Slytherin's prefects. "That was just an automatic spell, any half-blood with a wand could have done it."

Dean turned, his face crimson. "Looking for trouble, Milton?" he asked pointing his want at Raphael. "Professor Crowley won't be around to save your sorry arse when I make all of your hair fall out with a curse."

John frowned. "Let's go, boys," he said. He put his hands on Dean's and Sam's shoulders and pushed them away.

As they were leaving, Dean turned back and noticed that Raphael was glaring at his father. Mr Winchester, with his jeans and his plaid shirt, looked very out of place in a street full of wizards wearing cloaks and pointy hats.

Dean was pissed at the thought of Raphael insulting him in front of his father and his little brother. He tried to explain that Raphael was an arrogant bastard who thought he was better than everyone else because he came from a very old family, and that he was in sore need of someone teaching him a lesson, but his father wanted to hear none of it.

"That's enough," he said. "I don't want you to get in a fight. I'm not a wizard, if you get in trouble with your school I won't be able to help you."

He didn't even allow Dean to check out the Quidditch equipment store, dragging him directly to Gringotts. Dean pouted, but his mood improved a lot when Sam gasped at the sight of the goblins.

Mr Winchester changed some Muggle banknotes and received in exchange a small pile of gold coins. "I hope it'll be enough to pay for everything," he muttered. Wizard money always confused him.

Between Dean's list and Sam's list, there were a lot of things to buy. Sam was ecstatic when they visited Flourish & Blotts, and it took them forever to drag him away from the books. Then Dean spent some very uncomfortable fifteen minutes on Madam Malkin's stool while the witch stuck hundreds of pins on him and measured him for new school clothes, since he'd grown again over the summer.

Finally they reached their final stop, Ollivander's. Sam was trying to act nonchalant, but it was obvious that he was beside himself with glee at the thought of finally getting a wand.

Mr Ollivander greeted them with a bow from behind the counter.

"Mr Winchester," he said with a small smile. "Ash, thirteen inches, dragon heartstring. A fine wand."

Dean nodded. The shop, dark and dusty and filled to the ceiling with boxes of wands, made him feel uneasy.

"And there's another Mr Winchester," Ollivander continued, turning towards Sam. "Here for your first wand, I suppose."

While Ollivander was taking Sam's measurements, the small bell above the door rang to mark the arrival of new clients. The newcomers were a tall witch with a stern face and a little blonde girl. The witch made a noise of surprise as she stepped inside.

"Winchester!" she exclaimed, turning towards John.

"Hi, Ellen," he replied. If he too was surprised, he didn't show it. "It's been a while since the last time we saw each other." Dean waved a greeting to the little girl, but she ignored him.

The witch nodded. "Are they your sons?" she asked. "They took after her."

"Dean and Sam," John said, pointing to them in turn. Dean was following the exchange with great curiosity. "Your daughter Jo is all grown up too..."

They were all distracted by a huge cascade of silver sparks, and Sam rushed over to tell them that his new wand was made with a special wood, because he was the typical geek who would care about stuff like that. Mr Ollivander wrapped up the new wand (vine, ten inches and one quarter, unicorn hair) with great care and presented it to Sam with another bow and a flourish.

John and Ellen exchanged some more words before saying goodbye, talking so quietly that Dean couldn't hear what they were saying. Before leaving the shop, Dean turned back one last time and saw Mr Ollivander measuring the length of the little girl's left arm.

"Dad, who's that witch?" Dean asked once they were back outside. He had no clue that his father knew people from the magical world.

John lowered his eyes. "She knew your mother," was all that he said, and Dean didn't ask any more questions.


	2. September 1st

John Winchester took the morning off from work to drive the boys to King's Crossing. He loaded both of their trunks on a trolley, despite Dean's assurance that he could do it himself, and pushed the trolley to the barrier between platforms nine and ten.

"Here we are," he said. "Dean, can you take it from there?"

"Of course, dad," Dean replied.

Mr Winchester couldn't go through the magical barrier, so they said goodbye before crossing to platform nine and three-quarters.

"Be good and make sure to study," dad told Sam, as if there was any need to. "As for you, Dean, you behave this year. Take care of your brother."

Sam pouted. "I'm _eleven_ now, I don't need him to take care of me," he complained, but Dean laughed and ruffled his hair.

"Don't worry, Sammy is safe with me," Dean said. "See you next summer."

"Sooner than that, I hope," his father said with a small smile. "You'll be coming home for the Christmas holidays, won't you?"

Dean nodded, unsure. "If you're not too busy," he said.

"Of course!" his father said. "Don't forget to write. I don't care if the neighbours complain, let me know how things are going."

After a quick hug, Dean was the first to push his trolley through the barrier and step on the platform. Sam followed shortly after, still pouting.

"Cheer up, Sammy, we're going to Hogwarts," Dean said. He didn't want to argue with his brother on his first day. "For a school, it's not too bad..."

Sam shook his head. "You know, dad won't have time for us," he said. "Last year, when you came home for Christmas, he worked all the time and left us alone."

Dean's face clouded. "It's not his fault," he said. "Hogwarts' tuition isn't cheap, and now he's got to pay for both of us."

"You don't know anything, you weren't home for the past four years," Sam insisted. "Maybe you don't notice because you've always been his favourite."

Before Dean could reply, he thrust his hands in his pockets and ran off towards the train.

"Hey!" Dean exclaimed, but didn't go after his brother. To look after him didn't mean that they should be attached at the hip, Sam would manage on his own. Anyway, Dean would have died of embarrassment if his friends saw him dragging his kid brother around all the time.

He loaded the two trunks on the train and started looking for a seat. Towards the front of the train he found a compartment that was almost empty, save for a couple of Gryffindors sitting next to the window.

Dean sat down and stretched his legs on the seat in front of him. "Hi, Victor," he said. "Gordy, how are you?"

Gordon Walker nodded at him. "Hi," he replied, laconic.

"You're late as usual, Dean," said Victor Henricksen by way of a greeting. Both him and Gordon were in Dean's year. Victor was the Keeper of the Quidditch team, while Gordon played Beater.

"Celebrities are allowed to be fashionably late," Dean replied with a grin.

Victor rolled his eyes. "You think too highly of yourself," he said, though he had a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. He pointed to a silver badge pinned on his robes. "You better behave this year, I'm your new prefect."

Dean smirked with superiority. "Is that so? Guess who's your new Quidditch captain."

His friend gave him the thumbs-up. "Congrats," he said. "I knew Singer would pick you, you've always been his favourite."

"Too true," Gordon grumbled, apparently talking with the window, but loud enough so that everyone heard him.

Dean froze. "What do you mean?" he snapped.

Gordon turned to stare at him. "You know perfectly well what I mean, Winchester," he replied. "Singer has been playing favourites ever since you got on the team."

"Come on, Gordon, that was just a joke," Victor tried to say in a soothing tone, but Dean's clenched his fists and jumped to his feet.

"You're a moron," he told Gordon, "and I've got half an idea to replace you with someone who can really play Quidditch, unlike you."

He left the compartment in such a hurry that he almost cannonballed into a couple of Ravenclaws who were just passing.

Victor ran after him. "Dean, don't be mad," he said. "We all know that Singer chose you on talent alone."

Dean made a face. "Not all," he replied. "Not Gordon. He's been holding a grudge ever since I made Seeker instead of him in third year."

Victor shook his head and didn't reply to that. "You two warthog-heads should try to get along, otherwise our chances of winning the Cup will be less than zero," he said instead. "Gordon might be stubborn and brash, but he's a damn good Beater."

He was right, as usual, but Dean didn't care to spend the whole journey listening to Gordon's snide remarks. He said goodbye to Victor and went looking for another compartment. With some luck, his rage would have subsided by the time they got to Hogwarts. It wouldn't have been good to start his career as Quidditch captain by throttling one of his players.

Meanwhile the Hogwarts Express had left the station behind and was racing through the countryside. The front of the train was always packed full, so Dean headed down the corridor in the other direction.

A couple of carriages down he found his brother in a compartment full of first years. Sammy was talking with a really cute girl and he blushed crimson when Dean asked him if he'd found himself a girlfriend already. Dean made a mental note to tease him more about that later.

Further along there were Raphael and some of his cousins. The Miltons were a huge family, there were four of them in that compartment alone, all dressed in immaculate uniforms with the Slytherin colours. Dean noticed Anna Milton, one of the cutest fifth years. Luckily she was talking with Raphael and her back was turned to the corridor: she had gone out a couple of times with Dean in their fourth year, with disastrous results, and Dean didn't really want to be seen by her. He quickly walked past.

All the other carriages were full. Dean considered going back to Sam's and travelling with the first years but then, at the very end of the train, he found a compartment that was almost completely empty. The only occupant, a boy with dark hair that Dean didn't know, was engrossed in the reading of a huge leather-bound book.

"Are those seats free?" Dean asked.

The boy nodded without looking up from his book. Dean sank down on a seat in front of him. For some minutes, nobody spoke.

Dean looked out of the window, then he stared at the book and tried to guess what it was about. It didn't look like any of their textbooks. Maybe Sam would have liked it, but Dean didn't care much about books.

He was more interested about finding out who this kid was, since he knew most of the students. The boy was wearing Muggle attire, jeans and a t-shirt, so Dean didn't even know which House he was in.

The journey to Hogwarts was long, and it didn't take much for Dean's curiosity to get the better of him.

"I'm Dean," he said. "Dean Winchester."

The other boy glanced at him, and for a moment Dean saw a round face and two blue eyes. "Castiel," he said, going back to his book.

That wasn't nearly enough to satisfy Dean's curiosity. He didn't even know if Castiel was the student's first or last name.

"I'm a fifth year," Dean insisted. "Gryffindor."

"I know," Castiel said. "I saw you playing Quidditch last year."

That at least was something. Dean grinned. "Do you like Quidditch?"

Castiel shrugged. "A bit. Do you like it?"

"Of course I do!" Dean exclaimed, warming up. "It's my favourite thing _ever_. This year we're going to wipe the floor with the Hufflepuffs and take back the Quidditch Cup."

"I'm in Hufflepuff," Castiel replied, his tone neutral.

Dean's smile froze on his lips. "Er... I mean... What I meant is..."

The other shrugged. "I didn't take offence."

Dean breathed a sigh of relief. Typical of him to make a fool of himself, but seeing the book he had assumed that Castiel was a Ravenclaw bookworm. He watched Castiel turn a page.

"What are you reading?" he asked after a while.

Castiel put a finger between the pages to keep his place and showed him the cover of the book. The title was printed in faded silver letters, but Dean managed to decipher it.

" _Portents & Prophecies_," he read. " _A Complete Manual For The Modern Warlock_."

"It's not very modern," Castiel said, almost apologetically. "It's from last century, but aside from the textbook it's the only book on Divination that I found at home."

"You're taking Divination?"

Castiel nodded. "I'm starting this year. It seems to be an interesting subject. You?"

"No, it's too..." Dean stopped himself before he could say "too stupid". Trying to predict the future felt like a waste of time to him: after all, the future wasn't something already decided. But he didn't want to give offence twice in as many minutes, so instead he said, "I'm taking Care of Magical Creatures instead."

It was one of his favourite subjects, and Dean embarked in a lengthy tale about how last year Professor Singer had taken the class into the Forbidden Forest and showed them a unicorn foal.

Castiel seemed to like the story, and he even closed his book to listen. "I read somewhere that younger unicorns are gold instead of white," he said after Dean had finished talking, "but I've never seen one. I wish I'd chosen Care of Magical Creatures too."

"Which other subjects do you have?" Dean asked.

Castiel counted them on the tip of his fingers. "Divination, Arithmancy and Ancient Runes."

Dean whistled. "Tough ones!"

For a moment Castiel's expression changed, but his face went back to neutral so quickly that Dean thought he might have imagined it. "My parents insisted that I take Ancient Runes," Castiel said. "It's a family tradition."

"My dad is a Muggle," Dean shrugged. "So I don't have any tradition to carry on. I chose Muggle Studies instead, I like it a lot because it's easy and I can get good grades without having to study. It's too bad you don't have a subject like that to choose. It could be called something like Magical Studies..."

There were a few seconds of silence. "I don't understand," Castiel said after a while, tilting his head sideways."

"It was a joke," Dean said, trying to grin. "Magical Studies because you're from a family of wizards, it would be the same of Muggle Studies for students who come from a Muggle family."

Castiel was sill staring. "But all of our courses could be termed 'magical studies'," he said, making quotation marks with his fingers.

Dean was tempted to reply with another joke, but Castiel seemed honestly baffled. He decided to gave up trying to explain any further. "Never mind," he said, and he changed the subject.

By the time the lunch cart came by, Castiel's book had been put aside and the two boys were talking about their favourite and least favourite teachers. Castiel liked Professor Missouri, who was Head of Hufflepuff House and taught Herbology. Dean found her tyrannical and preferred the Deputy Headmaster, Professor Singer. Both boys agreed that Crowley was the worst teacher that Hogwarts had ever seen.

After lunch, Dean took out a deck of cards and taught Castiel how to play poker. Castiel had never seen Muggle playing cards and he kept poking the face cards to see if they would move. His deadpan face was good for bluffing, but he couldn't remember the values of the various combinations and lost one hand after the other.

"One more," he insisted every time, only to lose once again. Dean didn't keep score, but he figured that if they had been gambling then Castiel would have owed him several hundreds of Galleons. Castiel didn't seem too upset by that, though, and the two boys only stopped playing when the train arrived at Hogsmeade Station.

They changed in a hurry, pulling their robes over jeans and t-shirts, and they were among the last students to get off the train. Dean glimpsed a column of first years heading off towards the lake. He wanted to run after Sam and wish him good luck, but at the gates of the station Victor was gesturing for him to get a move.

He was about to go and join his friends when Anna Milton stepped in front of him.

"Winchester," she snapped. "What were you doing with my brother?"

"Your brother?" Dean repeated, not understanding. His stare went from Anna, with her red hair and her new Slytherin prefect badge, to Castiel, with his rumpled clothes and mussed hair from when he pulled on his robes in a hurry. Castiel shrugged. " _He_ 's your brother?" Dean asked Anna, still not really believing it.

"Don't play dumb, Winchester," Anna said. "It's over between us, so leave my family alone. Let's go, Cassie."

Anna grabbed Castiel's hand and pulled him towards the exit. Castiel waved goodbye, but Dean was too surprised to reply.

He knew that Anna had a younger brother, but for some reason he'd always imagined him as a miniature copy of Anna, a little red-haired Slytherin. Castiel was completely different from her. That shouldn't have come as such a surprise, since after all Dean himself wasn't precisely identical to his brother, but it was still weird to think that he'd just spent the whole journey talking to a Milton, and even weirder to realize that it had been fun.

Dean put these thoughts aside as he caught up with Victor and Gordon just outside the gates of Hogsmeade Station.

Gordon still looked pissed. "About time you showed up!" he grumbled.

"Where in Merlin's name did you run off to?" Victor asked, but in a much friendlier tone. "Was that Anna Milton? Don't tell me you were hitting on her again!"

Dean shook his head. "No way, she said it's over," he said, not bothering to mention the rest of his conversation with her. If his friends wanted to think he'd spent the day with Anna, Dean wasn't going to correct that assumption. It was better than having to explain about Castiel, and how he'd had a great time talking to a Hufflepuff that he barely knew.

During the short carriage ride, Victor finally managed to make peace between Dean and Gordon. At first they both shook hands grudgingly and kept glaring at each other, but by the time the carriage stopped in front of the castle they were on friendly terms again.

"It's your brother's first year, isn't it?" Gordon asked Dean while they marched into the Great Hall. "Do you think he'll be a Gryffindor too?"

"Of course he will," Dean replied with a grin. His mother had been a Gryffindor, and his grandparents too. It was one of the reasons why Dean liked being at Hogwarts so much. It made him feel like he was just where he belonged.

As the boys were sitting down at the Gryffindor table, Headmaster Shurley made his entrance, followed by all his staff members. Headmaster Shurley was... weird. There wasn't a word that could describe him better. He wasn't old at all, quite the contrary, he was younger than many of the other teachers. Before arriving at Hogwarts he'd spent most of his life writing a series of unsuccessful novels about two Muggle brothers.

Dean knew the headmaster very well, having been sent to his office several times when one of his jokes had really angered a teacher. Usually Shurley shook his head and started scolding Dean, only to lose track of what he was saying and start telling stories instead. He was completely barmy, but Dean liked him. He grinned as Shurley passed by.

On the other hand, Dean couldn't stand Professor Crowley.

"Do you think I could manage to Transfigure his goblet of pumpkin juice into a toad?" Dean asked in an undertone.

Victor and Gordon laughed. Crowley didn't hear the joke, otherwise he wouldn't have missed the opportunity to give Dean detention, but he saw them laughing and went over to where they were sitting.

"Mr Winchester," Crowley said, giving them a nasty smile. "Mr Walker. Perhaps you two would like the dubious honour of becoming the only students ever to lose points before the start-of-term feast?"

Luckily, Professor Singer entered just then with the first years in tow. "Crowley, never mind those idiots," he told his colleague. "We're about to start the Sorting Ceremony."

Professor Crowley seemed about to argue, but both Headmaster and Deputy Headmaster were staring at him. He made a face and strode off to sit at the teachers' table, his emerald green cloak billowing after him.

Dean stuck out his tongue at Crowley while his back was turned.

"Be careful, Crowley is going to get back at you for this," Victor said, but Dean ignored his warning. Crowley was always looking for reasons to take points off him anyway.

While Professor Singer explained about the Sorting Hat, Dean had a look at the first years lined up at the back of the Hall.

"There, that's my brother," he said, pointing at Sammy. He had to speak in a very low voice to avoid being harangued by Crowley again. Victor and Gordon craned their heads to get a better look.

"The tall one, next to the blondie?" Victor asked.

Dean nodded, even though he never thought of Sam as tall since he was his _little_ brother. But it was true that Dean's old robes didn't fit him and he'd had to buy new ones.

The Sorting Ceremony lasted for what seemed like hours. Dean had only eaten one turkey sandwich for lunch and he was starving, but that year the Hat seemed to be taking forever to decide. Moreover, by going in alphabetical order, Sam's was going to be the last name called. Dean started to think about how to set up tryouts for the team.

He had just decided that he should reserve the Quidditch pitch first thing on Monday when he noticed a familiar face. "Harvelle, Joanna," called Professor Singer, and Dean recognized the girl he'd met at Ollivander's. Her head was held high and she looked very determined, though she clenched her hands around the edges of the stool when Singer put the Hat over her eyes. After a handful of seconds the Hat yelled, "Gryffindor!"

Their table clapped as Harvelle took off the hat and went to sit with the members of her new House. Dean would have liked to talk to her, but she picked a seat far from where he was.

After Harvelle there was another girl, "Masters, Meg," who ended up in Slytherin. Then it was the turn of "Moore, Jessica Lee," the cute blonde girl that Sam had been talking to on the train. The Hat kept her sitting for almost one minute before sending her to Ravenclaw. Dean saw that Sam was pouting and felt a bit sorry for him. Surely his brother had been hoping that they would end up in the same House.

The last letters passed very slowly. O, R, two Ss... Then, finally, "Winchester, Samuel," Professor Singer called.

Sam sat down on the stool and looked around the Hall. Dean waved, but he wasn't sure that Sam saw him before Professor Singer put the Hat over his eyes.

Students and teachers waited while the Hat thought about which House would get the last student of the year. And waited. And waited some more.

"How long is this going to take?" Gordon whispered. "It must have been ten minutes already!"

"Not that long, surely," Victor said, but it was true that Sam's Sorting was taking the longest time. Every now and then he squirmed on the stool, but the Hat didn't give any sign that it was close to a decision. The professors seemed surprised too, and some were glancing at their pocket watches.

Then finally the Hat took a deep breath and yelled, "Ravenclaw!"

There was a huge applause as Sam, crimson in the face, took off the Hat. For a moment Dean thought he'd misheard, but the table where Sammy sat down was definitely the Ravenclaw one. Dean gaped at his brother.

"What?" Gordon began, but Victor elbowed him in the ribs to make him shut up.

Dean turned his back to the other tables and ignored the Headmaster's welcome speech. He focused on the food, even though all of a sudden he didn't feel hungry any more. Victor and Gordon tried to engage him in conversation, but Dean's answers were laconic and soon his friends gave up and started talking about a Quidditch match that the two of them had seen over the summer.

As soon as the desserts disappeared, Victor stood up. "I've got to show the first years the way to the Tower," he said. "You two go ahead, I'll see you in the dormitories."

Dean and Gordon left the Great Hall together, but on the stairs they crossed paths with a group of Ravenclaws going the other way. Sammy was with them, and Dean noticed that his brother was avoiding his eyes.

"We've got to talk," Dean told Sam. He took his brother's arm and dragged him in a corner of the landing, ignoring both Gordon and the Ravenclaws.

Sam pouted and stared at the floor. "I'm sorry, Dean," he mumbled.

Dean hadn't expected that. "Come on, what are you saying?" he said. "It's true I was disappointed, but it's not your fault. I'll still see you around at lunch and after lessons. Try not to get into troubles just because I'm not around!"

He was trying to make it sound like a joke, but Sam seemed more and more dejected. At the end, he confessed. "Yes, it's my fault," he said. "The Hat couldn't decide, so it asked me to pick between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw."

Slowly, Dean understood what his brother was trying to say. His smile completely vanished from his face. "You're saying you could have been in Gryffindor," he said, glacial, "but you chose another House?"

Sam nodded. "I thought about it, Dean, I really did, but..."

"But what, Sammy?" Dean snapped. "Gryffindor is my House! Everyone from our family was in that House, mum was in that House!"

"But I'm not you!" Sam yelled. He was on the verge of tears. "And I'm not mum either!"

Before Dean could reply, the Ravenclaw prefect came to see what was happening to one of her first years. She was a brown-haired, bespectacled girl that Dean knew by sight. She'd flirted with Dean at times, but tonight she didn't seem in the mood.

"Dean Winchester, stop bothering my students or I'll tell the Head of your House," she said, stern. While she was scolding him, Sam hurried back to the group of Ravenclaws.

"Leave him alone," Gordon told Dean after the prefect and the first years had moved away. "If your brother chose them instead of his family, it's not worth it to get angry because of him."

Dean reached the dormitory in a foul mood. When Victor returned, Dean was already in bed, with the curtains drawn around him to avoid being disturbed. It took him a long time to fall asleep.


	3. Mysteries and mistakes

Dean's bad mood lasted until breakfast. Victor gave the Gryffindors their timetables and Dean couldn't help but smile when he saw that his first lesson was Care of Magical Creatures.

They went back to Gryffindor Tower and quickly got their books. Gordon had Divination, so Dean and Victor said goodbye to him on the stairs and headed outside, towards the area near the Forbidden Forest where Professor Singer's classes took place.

"Hello, boys," the professor greeted them. A large, floppy, old hat was shadowing his eyes, and he was wrapped in a cloak to protect himself from the chilly morning air. "Did you have fun on your holidays?"

"Yes," Dean and Victor chorused. The rest of their class wasn't there yet, so they approached the professor's table to exchange a few words before the lesson.

"Which creatures are we studying today?" Victor asked.

Dean looked around to see if there were cages hidden behind the tables. "Are we going into the Forest again?" he asked, his eyes shining at the thought.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Singer replied. Dean and Victor nodded. "Instead, today you'll hand in your summer homework, and then we'll go over last year's material." He gave Dean a distrustful look. "You've done your homework, haven't you, boy?"

Dean made a face. "Yes, Professor," he replied. It had taken him a whole week to finish the essay Singer had given them, and he would have very much preferred owning a Crup than having to describe how to care for one. "I've finished all of your homework." He tried to look like a diligent student, but Singer knew him too well.

"You better have done _all_ homework, not just mine," he said. "Last night, Crowley seemed really cross with you. What the hell did you do this time?"

"Nothing at all!" Dean complained. Next to him, Victor turned his head to hide a smirk.

Singer glared at them both. "There's nothing funny, Henricksen. Now that you're a prefect you should be on your best behaviour, and mind your idiot friends too."

Victor bowed his head and apologized, but Dean was more stubborn and kept silent.

"Anyway," the professor said, "your little brother..."

Dean didn't want to talk about Sammy. He remembered that he had a question for Singer. "Professor, you know that first year girl?" he asked, not caring that he was interrupting the professor while he was speaking. "Jo Harvelle?"

"Boy, I'm not so old and barmy that I'll forget about the students in my own House," Singer replied. Then he shook his head. "If you're thinking about asking her out, forget about it. Her mum would kill you in the blink of an eye."

"You know Mrs Harvelle?" Dean asked, eagerly. "We met her and Jo in Diagon Alley while we were shopping for school supplies," he explained. He tried to explain as best as he could, mangling the words in his haste to tell Singer everything before the start of the lesson. "I thought all of my father's friends were Muggles. Professor, you knew my parents since before they got married, could you tell me something more?"

"Did you ask your father?" Singer said.

Dean nodded. "He said that Mrs Harvelle knew my mother."

Professor Singer frowned. "And...?"

"And that's all," Dean said. "My father never talks about my mother."

Singer shook his head. "Then let it go," he said. "If your father doesn't want to tell you, it's not my place to meddle. Now take a seat, class is starting."

The rest of the students were arriving, crossing the lawn in small groups. Reluctantly, Dean and Victor took a place at one of the large tables.

Talking to Singer had been a waste of time. Dean had hoped to find out something about his mother and Harvelle, but it seemed as if the only person who could tell him about them was his father, and his father didn't want to talk about them.

\---

That night, Dean had a war council with his team. One of their Chasers and one of their Beaters had graduated at the end of the previous year, leaving them with only five players.

"We don't have any reserve players," Dean said. "We need to find new players quickly, and start scheduling practice sessions as soon as possible."

Gordon huffed. "We could start without the new players," he said. "Present company excluded, everyone in Gryffindor sucks at Quidditch."

"Is this how you speak about your future teammates?" fourth year Gwen asked. Her cousin Christian, the other remaining Chaser, nodded.

Victor glared at Gordon. "I don't usually interfere with your attempts to make yourself hated," he said, "but Quidditch is a team sport."

Dean agreed with him. "I reserved the Quidditch pitch for Saturday morning, I want everyone there at eleven o'clock for tryouts. It's not going to be that bad," he added, talking to Gordon. "We'll just have to pick those who suck the least."

Obviously, Dean had forgotten that the universe hated him, and that if something could go bad it would go bad. Or worse.

When on Saturday morning he headed towards the Quidditch pitch with his broom over his shoulder, the first thing he noticed was the whole Hufflepuff Quidditch team walking out of the stadium. They seemed in high spirits, which in turn made Dean frown.

Hufflepuff's captain, Tessa White, was the first to notice him. "Good morning, Winchester," she said. She was always friendly, but Dean wasn't in the mood for chit-chatting.

"Tessa," he replied with a curt nod. "What are you doing here? I reserved the pitch for the morning."

"Yes," she replied, "but only after eleven o'clock. Our team just finished tryouts."

Dean hadn't expected the other teams to act so quickly. But, after all, Tessa was very determined. The previous year, her team had won the Quidditch Cup after narrowly defeating Gryffindor in an intense match. As long as she was captain, Hufflepuff wouldn't give up the Cup without a fight.

"Who are your new players?" Dean asked her.

Tessa stared at him for a moment, then nodded. "Sure, let me introduce you," she said. "After all, it's no big secret, if I didn't tell you their names you'd find out from someone else." She motioned to a pair of tall, burly boys behind her. Dean recognized them because he had Herbology class with them. "Our new Beaters," Tessa said. "And I don't think you know our new Seeker, Castiel Milton?"

Dean gaped at the sight of Castiel's dark head appearing from between the shoulders of the two taller boys.

"Hello Dean," Castiel said.

"What the hell are you doing here?" was all that Dean could say. "You didn't tell me that you played Quidditch!"

Castiel shrugged. The fact that he was on the Hufflepuff team pissed Dean off more than he could say. It was true that he and Castiel had spoken for the first and only time on the train, but Dean thought that Castiel could have bothered to mention the fact that he was going to try out for Seeker. Especially since he knew that Dean was Gryffindor's Seeker.

Tessa and the rest of her team were looking at the two of them with great curiosity.

"You already know each other?" Tessa asked. Luckily, before she could ask any more questions, the Gryffindor team showed up and the Hufflepuffs had to leave. "Good luck with your tryouts," Tessa told the opposing team.

Dean, sullen, stared at her while she and her team walked away. Tessa and Castiel walked very close, and seemed busy discussing strategies.

"What were the Hufflepuffs doing here?" Gordon asked. "Were they trying to spy on our tryouts?"

When Dean told his team about Hufflepuff's new players, Gordon's mood improved.

"They're so full of themselves, choosing such a newbie Seeker," he said with contempt. "Their loss. We're going to wipe the floor with them."

Victor was more cautious. "Who knows," he said with a shrug. "I've never seen this Milton play, but I think he has a couple of aunts playing for the Holyhead Harpies. He could be good."

Dean shared Victor's concerns. He didn't know about Castiel's aunts (the Miltons were so many that he always lost track of all their famous relatives) but what worried him was that Tessa wasn't the kind of person who was full of herself or took her opponents lightly. If she'd chosen a newbie like Castiel to play Seeker, it meant that Castiel had talent.

"We'll have to keep an eye on the Hufflepuffs," Dean said. Then he led his players on the pitch, and finally they started the tryouts.

The morning didn't go well at all. First thing, when Dean started reading the list of prospective players, he found the name of Jo Harvelle on top of the list.

"First years can't be on the team," he told her, taking her aside. "Anyway, you can't be serious? You want to play Beater?"

Dean tried to smile because he thought the whole thing was a joke, but Harvelle didn't look amused at all.

"Why not?" she said. "I'm much better than all these other gorillas who only think about hitting the Bludgers as fast as they can."

"Maybe, but the rules say that first years can't be on the team," Dean replied. "If you don't like it, you can complain to Professor Singer." He felt like a coward, bringing up the rules only when it suited him, but he didn't want to waste time arguing with a kid.

"Typical," Harvelle huffed. She left the field, stomping her feet, but instead of going back to the castle she sat in the stands and started making scathing comments every time that a player made a mistake.

There were many mistakes that morning. Much to Dean's dismay, Gordon had been right to say that the other Gryffindors sucked. They made stupid blunders, didn't follow instructions and hindered each other in mid-air. Gordon himself wasn't doing anything to improve the situation. Dean asked him to send Bludgers against the prospective Beaters, at different speeds and angles to judge everyone's level, but Gordon's only goal was to unseat as many players as possibly.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Dean asked, a couple of hours later. Beneath them, Victor was helping a bruised boy off the pitch. He was the third casualty already.

Gordon shrugged. "I'm trying to get rid of the weakest players."

Dean would have gladly got rid of him, but just the fact that he could hold his Beater's bat without dropping it made Gordon superior to all the other applicants.

The Chasers were not as bad, and Victor was trying to test them and not to kill them, but none of them stood out particularly. They ended picking Pam, who would have been good if it wasn't for the fact that she was blind as a bat and couldn't play without her thick glasses.

They argued for the longest time over the new Beater. Gordon wanted to play alone, insisting that all the other Beaters were morons and they would only hinder him. However Dean was the captain and he eventually got his way. He picked Ronald, a chubby sixth year who had distinguished himself more for his strength than for his aim. When they told Ronald that he'd made the team, he was so excited he fell off his broomstick.

At that, Even Harvelle stopped making nasty remarks and just shook her head in a disconsolate way before leaving for lunch.

Dean headed to the showers with the certainty that his first day as a captain couldn't have gone any worse.

\---

Potions classes were always torture, but over the summer Crowley had reached new levels of nastiness. He prowled the classroom and breathed down the Gryffindors' necks while they worked, subtracting points for every little mistake.

When Dean accidentally blew up his cauldron, Crowley didn't miss the chance and immediately bore down on him. "Winchester, what did you do this time?" he asked, glaring at the mess. "Three porcupine quills, _three_ , not a whole handful! I don't understand how it can be possible that in five years I haven't managed to get anything into your empty head. This year you've got OWLs, and given your current level you'll be lucky to get a P."

Dean covered his face with a sleeve and tried not to breathe in any of the grey smoke coming from his cauldron's blackened remains. He wasn't quite that hopeless at Potions, but he didn't feel like studying Crowley's subject. He didn't care about his grades, and he was looking forward to finally stop taking that class next year.

"Ten points from Gryffindor," Crowley said, "and clean up this mess."

From the other side of the dungeon, the Slytherins were snickering. Crowley hated all of them too, especially the Miltons, but he never took points from them because he was the Head of their House. Under his glare, everyone stopped laughing.

After Dean mopped up the potion from the floor as best as he could, Crowley told him to work with another student for the remainder of the lesson. "Not one of your pals from Gryffindor," he warned him when Dean immediately pointed towards Victor. "You'd just waste your time blabbering about your stupid Quidditch team. You'll pair up with a Slytherin, and if you end up killing each other, all the better for me."

Victor gave Dean a look of sympathy, while all the Slytherins leaned over their cauldrons and pointedly ignored him. Dean walked over to Anna and cleared his throat.

"Don't even think about it," she said without even looking up.

"Hey, Winchester!" called a voice from another table. Dean turned and saw Gabriel Milton waving to him. The look on his face was more like a leer than a smile, but Dean thought it would be better to pair up with him than to remain standing in the middle of the dungeon and wait for Crowley to insult him again.

He sat on a stool next to Gabriel, who was busy carefully weighing his ingredients. "What do you want?" Dean asked.

Gabriel looked at him from head to toe and gave him another of his smirks. "Given your skills in potion making, I think it's better for both of us if you don't do anything at all," he said. "I'll take care of this."

Dean glanced at him suspiciously and stared while Gabriel poured some crushed porcupine quills into the cauldron.

"It would be nice of you to thank me," Gabriel continued. "I'm being so nice and letting you work with me. I'm much nicer than my cousin Anna. By the way, let me give you some advice: leave my dear cousin alone."

"This is none of your business," Dean said in a whisper to avoid being overheard by Crowley, "but me and Anna broke up and I'm not trying to get back with her. I don't know what she told you, but..." He stopped when Gabriel started snickering. "What's so funny?"

"Very convincing, Winchester. _I'm not trying to get back with her_ ," Gabriel repeated. "Then what were you talking about with Cassie the other day?"

It took Dean a while to link "Cassie" with the kid he'd met on the train. "You mean Castiel? When I started talking to him, I didn't even know his name."

Gabriel seemed unconvinced. He poured the rest of the ingredients in a bowl and began to crush them with a pestle. "Sure, and then you _casually_ started talking about Anna," he said. Just then, Crowley passed their table, and Gabriel hastily pressed the bowl into Dean's hands. "Take this, if you're not doing anything the professor will notice. At least you can't mess this up."

"You're wrong," Dean said, thumping the pestle against the bowl to punctuate his words.

"Come on, Winchester, even you can crush belladonna petals."

"Very funny," Dean replied, rolling his eyes. "I meant I never talked about Anna with Castiel. We just talked about this and that."

"A likely story," Gabriel smirked. "I can't believe you spent hours with Cassie just for the thin pleasure of his conversation. I've known my cousin since he was born and I know that his sense of humour is comparable to that of a pickled toad. Except that the toad is funnier."

Dean slammed the mortar on the table with such force that part of the contents spilled on the table. Gabriel glared and started cleaning up the mess, but Dean didn't care about Gabriel's hurt feelings. "At least Castiel is a decent person, unlike his other relatives," he snapped.

Gabriel didn't seem impressed by this outburst. "That's good to know," she said simply. He still had an insolent smile on his face. "Anna will be happy to know that you weren't plotting anything that involves my dear little cousin."

"Silence, back there," Crowley ordered. Then he walked over to their table and spent the rest of the lesson staring at them, forcing the two boys to shut up.

Privately, Dean was glad he'd escaped Gabriel's questioning. As soon as the bell rang, he gathered his stuff and ran out of the dungeons as quickly as he could.

The Slytherins had Transfiguration next, so to avoid crossing paths with them Dean went directly to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, which was in the opposite side of the castle. Victor and Gordon arrived soon after.

"Why were you in such a hurry?" Victor asked. He was still slightly out of breath for having rushed up five flights of stairs.

Dean shook his head. "It's nothing. Gabriel Milton was pissing me off," he said. "I don't know why he thought I was trying to get back together with his cousin."

"The Miltons are all morons," Gordon declared.

Their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Professor Azazel, their new Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers. He was a tall, gaunt wizard, and would have looked quite ordinary if it wasn't for the fact that he always wore a pair of tinted glasses, even inside the castle. No one had the courage to ask him if he had eye problems. He was someone that Dean didn't want to have as an enemy.


	4. Weekend at Hogsmeade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Er. Sorry. I definitely didn't mean to abandon this, but I got busy and then lost interest in the fandom and then it was two years later. I feel bad leaving the story unfinished, especially since I've written it and only need to translate it, so I promise you I'm going to finish it this time. For real. Hopefully it won't take me two years to post the next chapter, even though I'd forgotten that translating is an awfully boring job and it takes me almost as long as writing the story in the first place. (And, I know I despise authors who fish for comments in the summary, but if you're reading this and you'd like to find out how the story goes, it'd be cool if you left me a comment. Just to remind me that this story exists and I need to post the rest of it. Because I have the attention span of a goldfish and I might forget. Literally the only reason I remembered this was unfinished is because of a comment someone left. So yeah. Also I like comments.)

The first month back at Hogwarts went by in a flash. All the professors seemed to think about were the OWLs at the end of fifth year, so they were giving their students piles of homework. Dean thought it was stupid to start studying for exams months and months in advance, but there was nothing he could do about it. Between homework and lessons and Quidditch practice he never had much free time. The first match of the season was against Ravenclaw, and pretty much everyone agreed that Ravenclaw was the weakest of the four teams, but that wasn't a reason to slack off. Dean couldn't even contemplate the idea of losing against his brother's housemates.

After that disastrous first day, Dean had tried to avoid Sam as much as possible. The task was easy enough, since their timetables were completely different and they slept in opposite wings of the castle. Dean saw his brother from afar during meals in the Great Hall, and it was enough for him to know that his brother was still alive and that nobody had Transfigured him into a moose or anything of the sort.

The day before the Quidditch match, however, Sammy got up from the Ravenclaw table in the middle of breakfast and headed towards the Gryffindors. Dean, already in a bad mood because of the impending match, kept eating his bacon and pretended he didn't see his brother approach.

"Dean," Sam said, so hesitant that it almost sounded like a question. Dean didn't react and Sam turned back, as if searching for his housemates' support. Unfortunately he didn't seem inclined to leave before he had said what he wanted to. "I just got an owl from dad," Sam continued. "He wants to know how you are doing, and if you got his letters."

Dean's head snapped up from a contemplation of his scrambled eggs. "Oh, damn!" he exclaimed, slamming the fork on the table with annoyance. "I forgot to write." He'd meant to reply as soon as he received his father's letter, more than a week ago, but between lessons and practice he hadn't found the time. The unfinished letter was somewhere in his dorm, forgotten.

"Can I tell him everything's ok and you'll write later?" Sam asked.

"Thanks," Dean muttered, sullen. "I'll write after the match. For sure."

His brother nodded. He seemed uncomfortable, maybe because of Dean or maybe because a bunch of older Gryffindors were staring at him with curiosity. "Good luck for tomorrow," he finally managed to stammer.

"Thanks," Dean said again. He shoveled up a forkful of bacon, just because it bothered Sam to see him talk with his mouth full. "But you should be hoping that I fall off my broom, so Ravenclaw would win."

Sam shook his head. "What? No!" he exclaimed. "You're still my brother, even though you're disgusting," he added, turning his head around while Dean gave him a grin with a mouth full of bacon bits.

Dean swallowed noisily. "I suppose I should wish Ravenclaw good luck too," he said, after a pause that was only slightly too long for it to sound heartfelt. "And may the best team win."

Ravenclaw's Seeker, Ash, was also a fifth year. Dean wasn't sure what to make of him. Sometimes Ash was brilliant, sometimes he flew as if someone just hit him with a Confundus Charm. The rest of the team was very weak, so if Ravenclaw won Dean would seriously consider moving to Durmstrang and giving up Quidditch forever.

But maybe Sam didn't know about the teams' strengths and weaknesses yet, because he seemed to take Dean's words at face value. "May the best team win," Sam repeated.

He sounded less glum now, almost normal, but instead of going back to his table he hesitated and hovered next to Dean. "Everything's okay, right?" Dean asked after a moment, glaring at the Ravenclaws. He noticed Becky, who quickly turned around in her seat and pretended that she hadn't been spying on the Winchesters, and Ash, who waved at him. "If you're not comfortable in your House..."

"No," Sam said quickly, before Dean could finish his threat to turn all the Ravenclaws into porcupines if they bullied Sam. "It's okay, I like Ravenclaw, I like it very much. It's, well... It's just that I didn't want to argue with you on the first day..."

Sam made a sad face, and Dean thought it was unfair that his brother was making him feel guilty, even though the fault wasn't Dean's at all. It was all Sam's fault for being stupid and wanting to be in stupid Ravenclaws instead of being in Gryffindor with Dean, and now he was even pretending that he liked being there, as if he didn't know that Gryffindor was the best possible House to be in. But Sam was his little brother, so he was allowed to be a bit daft.

"I didn't want to argue either," Dean said. Lately he'd been bearing a grudge against all Hufflepuffs and all Miltons, who are half of Slytherin, and even Gordon was sorely taxing his patience. He felt that if he kept arguing he wouldn't have anyone left. But Dean had no intention of apologizing because, dammit, it was Sam's fault.

"Can we make up?" Sam asked, lower lip trembling. Damn that lower lip.

"Yeah, of course." Sam immediately broke into a smile and made an aborted movement, but Dean had no intention of hugging his little brother in front of all the school. He nodded and turned towards his plate again. "It's been a touching moment. Now leave me alone or I'll cry all over my breakfast."

Sam left, muttering something about not talking while eating, and Dean felt a lot better than before. On the next day he completely trounced Ash and caught the Snitch in ten minutes flat. When Sam congratulated him and then forced him to sit down and write a letter to dad, Dean felt that they'd definitely made up.

\---

The first Hogsmeade visit was scheduled for the first weekend after the match. Dean couldn't wait to be out of the school and spend some time in a place that wasn't the Quidditch pitch or a classroom. He planned to go with Victor and Gordon and do the usual tour of Zonko's, Honeydukes and the Three Broomsticks, which usually ended with the three of them on the lawn in front of the Shrieking Shack, daring each other to get close to the haunted house.

However, Victor had other plans. "Sorry, Dean," he said as they were getting dressed in their dorm room. "I asked Pam if she wanted to go with me."

"Oh." Dean hadn't been expecting that, but he shrugged. "She can come too," she said. "I like Pam, she's funny."

Victor shook his head. "Er, well," he said. "I asked her to go with _me_. It's, er, it's sort of a date."

Finally Dean understood why Victor looked more nervous than he'd ever been in the five years Dean had known him. "Oh," he repeated. "Okay. I didn't expect that, but okay."

"I wasn't trying to keep it a secret or anything," Victor said defensively. "I've been spending a lot of time with Pam, I thought you'd noticed that."

Dean only remembered spending a lot of time with Victor and Pam and the rest of the team during practice. He'd been so focused on defeating Ravenclaw that everything else had moved to the background.

"Yeah, sure," he lied. "You and Pam. Of course i noticed. But I didn't think you'd abandon your friends like this. Think about Zonko's and Honeydukes!"

"I can still visit them with Pam," Victor laughed. "And you can go with Gordon."

The idea of spending a whole afternoon alone with Gordon wasn't very appealing to Dean. Gordy had been even more insufferable than usual during the match: he'd managed to commit two fouls in under ten minutes. Victor's skills as a Keeper had stopped Ravenclaw from scoring, and his endless patience had stopped Dean from strangling Gordon at the end of the match. But without Victor around to act as their peacemaker, it was only a matter of time until Dean and Victor came to blows.

Dean decided that he'd rather go alone than with Gordon. The corridors were full of students heading out, chatting happily about where to go and what to see in Hogsmeade, but Dean couldn't very well go over and ask them if he could tag along.

He was thinking that it was a real shame that there wasn't any cute girl that he could ask out, like Victor had done with Pam, when he turned a corner on the second floor and saw a group of Ravenclaws in front of the Library.

Sam, busy talking with his lady friend, didn't even notice his brother. Dean took that as an invitation to stop and bother him.

"Hey Sam," Dean say, throwing am arm around Sam's shoulders. His brother jumped and turned around, and Dean smirked. "Who's your friend?"

Dean remembered her name from the Sorting Ceremony, but it was fun to watch Sam going crimson in the face.

"Jess," she said. "Jess Moore. And you're Dean, right? Your brother's always talking about you."

"Good things only, I hope," Dean replied, patting Sam's shoulder. If Sam didn't stop growing, soon he'd reach Dean's height.

The girl nodded. "We watched you play last week. You're very good."

"Thanks," Dean said. "Sam, your girlfriend is adorable!"

Jess also turned crimson at those words. Sam mumbled something that sounded vaguely like, "not my girlfriend," and stared at the floor as if it had suddenly become very interesting.

Dean smirked again. "Sure, sure," he said. "Gotta go now. Hogsmeade weekend, you know. I'm sorry you can't come along, Hogsmeade's a terrific place."

Sam and Jess didn't seem too disappointed. "We've got a study group this afternoon," Sam said. "Let's go, Jess."

Dean watched them follow their friends into the Library. "Ravenclaw," he muttered. "The only weirdos who would have fun with a study group on a Saturday afternoon." Then he noticed one of the Ravenclaw girls was still within earshot. "That's... I mean..."

The girl giggled, ignoring his confusion. "Your brother has got a crush on Jess," she said, as if she was revealing a huge secret. "I don't think either of them is going to get much studying done today."

That still wasn't a good reason to spend the afternoon in the stuffy Library, at least in Dean's opinion, but he didn't say anything. He suddenly had an idea. "Hey, Rosen..."

"Becky," she said. "Call me Becky."

"Okay, Becky. Do you want to go to Hogsmeade with me?"

Becky gave him a huge smile and for a moment Dean thought he'd made it. But then she shook her head. "I'm sorry, I can't," she said. "I promised my friends to meet them to work on our Acromantula essays, and then I've got Arithmancy homework." She bit her lip. "Maybe another time?"

"Yeah," Dean said. "Maybe another time." He doubted that there would be another time, unless Victor deserted him again.

In the Entrance he met Jo Harvelle. She seemed in a good mood, since she even deigned to stop and say hello, so Dean thought it'd be worth a shot to ask her too.

"What are you doing this afternoon?" he asked.

"I'm going to the Quidditch pitch," she replied. "It's empty this afternoon, I want to borrow one of the school's broomsticks and fly a couple of laps. Unless you're going to forbid that too?"

"No, no," Dean hastened to say. "I thought maybe you'd rather come to Hogsmeade with me."

Harvelle frowned. "I'm a first year, I don't have permission."

"Who cares?" Dean said. He stepped closer to the girl and lowered his voice so the other students woudn't hear. "You don't need permission, I know a secret passage leading out of the castle" He grinned and looked at her expectantly.

Harvelle slapped him so hard that his ears rang. "You're a tosser, Winchester," she said. "You only follow rules when it suits you. Bugger off." She left herself before Dean could reply, tossing back her blonde hair with disdain.

Dean hoped nobody had been around to witness his ignominy, but of course he wasn't so lucky. Gabriel Milton was nearby and had seen everything.

"Ouch, Winchester," Gabriel said. The look on his face was halfway between sympathetic and amused. "You're really got a way with girls."

"Leave me alone," Dean said, massaging his stinging cheek.

Gabriel ignored him. "I see you're all alone," he said, pretending to look up and down the hall. "Good, because I've got a favour to ask of you."

"Why would I listen to you?" Dean asked.

"It's not for me that I ask, it's for my cousin," Gabriel said. Only then Dean noticed Castiel, who was standing aside almost hidden by Gabriel's taller form.

Castiel's face was half-hidden behind a bright canary-yellow scarf. "Hi, Dean," Castiel mumbled.

"You see, Winchester, this is Cassie's first Hogsmeade visit," Gabriel said. "He ought to go with someone who can give him the grand tour: Honeydukes, Zonko's, the Owl's Post Office, the Shrieking Shack... Honeydukes, the Three Broomsticks... But especially Honeydukes, their sweets are delicious..."

Dean didn't understand what Gabriel was getting at. Moreover, Castiel was staring at him. "Okay, so give him this grand tour if it's so important," Dean snapped. "What's it to do with me?"

Gabriel gave a huge, theatrical sigh. "Alas, my other cousins aren't so enthusiast at the idea. Raphael, in particular, has to wish to spend the afternoon with the Seeker who soundly defeated his team in the last match."

Hufflepuff had won its match by a landslide: two hundred and twenty points to ten, after Castiel caught the Snitch from under the nose of the Slytherin Seeker. Gabriel had commented the match, and despite the fact that it was his own House, he had missed no opportunity to make scathing remarks about all the many errors that Slytherin had made.

Dean hadn't thought about how Gabriel's housemates might have reacted, but he knew from his own experience that Raphael was much too prickly.

"Then it's decided," Gabriel said, before Dean could even reply, slapping both him and his cousin on the back. "I'm trusting Cassie to you."

"Wait a moment," Dean began, while at the same time Castiel complained, "I told you there's no need."

Gabriel shook his head. "I can't leave you on your own," he told his cousin, "you'd end up wasting the day by reading some old musty book. Cassie, Winchester, make sure you behave yourself. See you!"

Dean grunted and watched Gabriel run off to join his friends from Slytherin, with no regard to the fact that he'd just foisted his cousin on someone he barely knew.

Castiel was still staring at him. "There's no need for you to go with me, I don't want to bother you," he told Dean. "I can go back to my dorm..."

"To read some musty old book?" Dean asked. "No way, not if I can help it. Come on, let's go." Visiting Hogsmeade with Castiel wouldn't be as fun as it would be with his friends, but it was infinitely better than going on his own.

He had to almost push Castiel out of the large double doors. Outside the castle it was very cold, with an icy wind blowing. It felt like deep winter rather than the end of October. Dean wrapped his cloak tightly around himself, and Castiel pulled his scarf so high that it covered his nose.

For a while they walked in silence, but the road from the castle to the village was long and Dean easily bored.

"I saw your match," he said. "You played well." Much better than Dean or his team had expected, truth be told. Dean was glad that their match against Hufflepuff was the last of the season, because they'd have to change all of their tactics to account for how quickly Castiel moved across the field.

Castiel bowed his head. "Really?" he said. For a moment Dean thought the other boy was fishing for compliments, but then Castiel added, "You're not angry with me, then?"

"No," Dean replied, taken aback. "Why should I be?"

"Last time we talked, just after tryouts," Castiel began, his voice muffled by his scarf's wool. "You seemed angry when you found out that I was the new Seeker."

Dean had almost forgotten about that. "I was surprised, that's all," he said with a shrug. His words formed small white puffs in front of his face. "Now that I've seen you play I can see why Tessa wanted you on the team."

Castiel stayed silent for a while. "I'm glad you're not angry," he said eventually.

"Of course, we Gryffindors would prefer it if your team sucked," Dean said. "But it doesn't matter, it only means that we'll have to work harder to defeat you."

The other boy nodded. "We're going to work hard too," he said, very seriously. His solemn face made a strange contrast with the ridiculous scarf wrapped around his neck.

They were both frozen to the bone when they reached the village and it was a relief to enter the shops and get warm. Dean decided that their first stop had to be Zonko's, his favourite shop. He'd been saving up his allowance for two weeks and he had every intention to spend his little pile of Galleons on Dungbombs, Stink Pellets, and each one of this year's novelties.

However, touring the shops with Castiel proved to be a difficult task. Dean showed him the whole shop, pausing to point out all of his favourite joke items. Castiel listened politely but didn't seem inclined to buy anything, or even to look closely at the items. He just walked around with a vaguely perplexed frown on his face, as if he was in a museum full of alien artefacts.

"But what is it for?" Castiel asked when Dean handed him a deck of cards that exploded when you tried to shuffle it.

"To prank someone," Dean replied. "You hand it to someone and it blows up in their hands. It's not dangerous, just a bit of smoke and sparks."

The boy seemed genuinely baffled by this explanation. "Why would I want to do that?" he asked, turning the cards around in his hands, gingerly.

"Why...?" Dean didn't know what to reply. "For fun," he said. "As a joke."

Castiel put the playing cards back on the shelf, gingerly, as if they might blow up in his face at any moment. Dean sighed and moved on to browse the Dungbomb.

The same thing happened in Dervish & Banges. Castiel looked at the shelves with puzzlement and sometimes asked how this magical item worked and what was the purpose of that instrument. When neither he nor Dean could figure out a strange contraption made of silvery disks linked together, Castiel asked the owner and learned that it was a lunar calendar.

"Interesting," Castiel said, but he left the shop without buying anything.

After a while Dean lost his temper. "It's Honeydukes!" he exclaimed, when Castiel once again toured a whole shop without making any purchases. "Even your stupid cousin agrees that their sweets are the best. If it's because you don't have any money, you can borrow some from me..."

Castiel shook his head. "It's not because of money," he said.

"There's got to be something you want to buy," Dean insisted.

The boy tilted his head sideways and thought about it. "I think I need a new bottle of ink," he ventured.

"That's not what I meant, you dunce," Dean sighed. "I meant something fun. Something that you like. And if you tell me that you like ink I'm going to Transfigure you into a badger," he threatened, brandishing one of the Licorice Wands.

Castiel didn't get the joke. "Ink is useful, but I wouldn't say that I like it," he replied. "I have neutral feelings towards ink. And that's not a real wand, so you couldn't use it to cast a spell."

Dean sighed again, then grabbed Castiel by the lapels and dragged him towards a counter where a witch was offering free samples. "Our newest, Mintymilk Marshmallows," she said, offering the boys two small cubes wrapped in striped green and white paper. "Try one!"

"Thank you," Castiel said, politely, taking the sweet and turning it over and over in his hands. When he finally decided to unwrap it, Dean had already eaten his.

"Not bad," he said, licking some sugar from the corner of his mouth. "Bit too sweet for my taste."

"Dean," Castiel said, leaning forward. Suddenly, his face was so close that Dean could feel his breath on his own face. It smelled like mint.

"Cas," he replied, stepping back. "Don't get in my face like that, leave me room to breathe."

"Sorry," Castiel said. "Dean, your tongue is green."

For a moment Dean didn't understand, then he noticed that the other students who had tried the marshmallows were pointing at each other and showing their tongue to their friends. "You too?" he asked Castiel.

Castiel showed him his tongue, which had gone from pink to striped green and white. Dean laughed, and even Castiel cracked a smile.

"It only lasts for a few minutes," the witch behind the counter explained. "And they come in nine different flavours and colours."

Dean managed to convince Cas to buy some of the marshmallows. If he had been left on his own, Castiel would have bought just one or two. "I don't eat so many sweets," he complained.

"You don't have to eat all of them at once," Dean replied. "You can offer some to your friends, it's a funny trick. You can try and give some to Gabriel!"

Castiel didn't seem to understand why it was so funny, but in the end they both left Honeydukes holding small paper bags full of every different flavour of marshmallow. Dean also stocked up on Chocolate Frogs. He was only missing Morgana's card and he was sure he'd find it sooner or later.

Of course, Castiel didn't collect the cards. "Why is it so important to have all of them?" he asked. "There's so many. One more or one less doesn't make much of a difference." Dean didn't know what to reply.

The afternoon was almost over. They made a quick stop at the Owl Post Office to see the owls and Cas was mesmerized by a huge snow owl. Then they stopped at Scrivenshaft's and Dean persuaded Cas to buy, aside from regular boring ink, a bottle of special ink that changed colour as you wrote.

He felt in a great mood as they walked back to the castle, talking about Quidditch and broomsticks. Castiel might have been chronically devoid of a sense of humour, but the afternoon had been unexpectedly fun.


	5. Old secrets and new friends

Despite Victor's optimistic prevision, Gordon didn't seem inclined to stop acting like an idiot. The last training sessions had been a disaster: the new players weren't improving and Gordon kept blaming it on Dean. Victor had tried to make peace between the two of them, but lately he'd been spending more and more time with Pam, and without his mediating presence the situation was quickly escalating into full-blown enmity.

One Wednesday afternoon, professor Azazel made Dean and Gordon stay behind after the lesson, because they'd both received a P in their last essay.

"Studying the _Code of Regulamentation for Vampire Behaviour in Urban Areas_ is a waste of time," Gordon huffed as soon as Azazel let them go. "It's the most useless thing ever, aside maybe from a certain useless Quidditch captain."

Dean stopped in the middle of the corridor and turned around to face Gordon. Victor would have probably counselled patience, but Victor wasn't here, and Dean decided he'd had enough. "Are you talking about me?" he asked.

"Have you gone deaf?" Gordon replied. "How many more useless captains do you see around?"

"You're forgetting that it was me who led the team to victory against Ravenclaw," Dean snapped back.

Gordon laughed, mocking. " _I led the team_ ," he said in a sing-song voice. "Who do you think you are? You're not the only player on the field."

"No," Dean replied. "But at least I was _playing_ , unlike some other moron who was only trying to score as many fouls as possible..."

He almost shouted these last few words, because Gordon was trying to interrupt him. Dean didn't feel like listening to any more bullshit, so he opened his bag and curled his fingers around his wand.

"I swear this time I'm turning you into a bat, Walker!" Dean yelled.

Gordon seemed equally furious. "Just try it, Winchester," he replied, flinging his wand arm in front of himself.

Dean already had the first letters of a curse on his lips, and he was so worked up that he didn't notice Professor Singer until the man stepped right in front of him.

"What are you two idiots doing now?" he asked, seizing both Dean and Gordon by the scruff of their necks. Singer was known for having a sour temper, but it was the first time that Dean had seen him so angry. He'd never been really and truly pissed, not even last year when Gryffindor had lost the Quidditch Cup by a handful of points.

"We were... er..." Dean mumbled, caught off guard. It was difficult to think of a convincing lie, not when Singer had all but walked in on the two of them duelling.

Gordon lowered his wand and remained grudgingly silent.

"What are you, a pair of idiot first years? What were you thinking?" Singer asked, frowning. "I ought to take points off of you both, because of your chronic stupidity."

At that, Dean held his breath. Hogwarts didn't have an official list of forbidden things, because it might give the students ideas, but if there was such a list then duels would have been pretty much on top of it. The professors strictly punished all students who were caught using magic against someone.

"Two Gryffindor students, duelling!" the professor went on. "I can't believe this. Never, in all my years in this school, have I seen such a display of blatant idiocy. You'd deserve to lose fifty points each."

Both Dean and Gordon went pale, but Singer sighed and shook his head. "You're lucky it was me who caught you, and that you hadn't actually done anything yet," he said. "I'll let it slide just this once, if you promise to stop acting like you've got turnips on your necks instead of heads. Piss off, Walker, before I change my mind."

"Thanks, Professor Singer," Gordon mumbled. He shot one final parting glare at Dean and bolted towards the stairs.

Dean was about to head in the opposite direction but the professor stopped him. "Not you, Winchester. Come with me."

His voice made it clear that it was a request, not a polite invitation, so Dean put away his wand and followed Singer down a couple of floors and into his office.

The office was full of piles of books, and also bird cages and fish tanks where the professor kept the creatures he showed his classes. Dean loved the place, and he was always trying to make up excuses to visit Singer and find out in advance which creatures he'd show them in his next lesson. However, this time it was difficult even to have a look around.

Singer's face still looked like thunder, and Dean stood motionless and silent while the professor muttered about idiot students and tinkered with an old, battered kettle.

Finally, after accepting a cup of steaming hot black tea, Dean cleared his throat and decided to say something. "Professor," he said, "thank you for not taking away any points."

The professor grunted. "You'd have deserved it," he said. "But we're tied with Slytherin right now, and Crowley is getting insufferable. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of being in the lead."

That made Dean snicker, but only for a second; then Singer glared at him and he hurriedly lowered his eyes and drank a large gulp of tea. The tea was very strong and bitter, and so hot it scalded his tongue."

"Instead of horsing around, focus on beating Slytherin in the next match," Singer said.

"It's Gordon's fault," Dean complained. "He's acting like a complete idiot, and he won't accept me as team captain."

Singer frowned and downed half of his tea in a large gulp. "That's no reason for acting like an even bigger idiot," he said. "Do you think that's the right way to show him that you're the captain? By challenging him to a duel in front of Professor Azazel's classroom?"

Dean lowered his head. "I'm sorry," he mumbled. "It won't happen again."

"It better not," Singer said. "Or it'll be Azazel who will make you be sorry. If you'd done something like that twenty years ago..."

Singer stopped abruptly, as if he'd only just realized what he was saying, but Dean had heard enough. Everyone knew what had happened at Hogwarts twenty years ago."

Dean leaned forward in his chair. "Sir, are you talking about the Demons?" he asked.

Years ago, before Dean was even born, the then-Headmaster of the school had vanished without a trace. Shortly after the same had happened to the Deputy Headmaster, and then to two other teachers. The Aurors suspected a group of dark witches and wizards that called themselves the Demons, but they hadn't ever been able to prove anything, nor to find out what happened to the missing staff members.

The school had been in a state of chaos for months. Several teachers had quit for fear of being the Demons' next target and nobody would accept a position at Hogwarts, not even as a janitor.

Then Charles Shurley had come out of nowhere and he had become the new Headmaster. Most of the magical world had been taken aback by the appointment, but Shurley had been the only one brave enough (or maybe stupid enough) to take the post. And, miraculously, he was better at the job than anyone could have hoped for.

When he first stepped through the gates of Hogwarts, the school was about to be closed down. By the next year, everything was back to normal. The mysterious disappearances stopped, Shurley hired new teachers, and that chapter of Hogwarts history was almost forgotten.

Dean knew that Professor Singer had been teaching Care of Magical Creatures while all of that had been going on, but Singer never talked about that time. Nobody ever talked openly about the Demons. There was a sort of superstition going around, saying that if you mentioned the name of the Demons they'd come and take you away. Dean thought it was ridiculous, by now the Demons were only good enough to scare some gullible first year, but he would have liked to hear what Professor Singer had to say about them.

Unfortunately, wasn't feeling very talkative. He frowned and finished his tea. "It's none of your business, boy," he said, shooting down Dean's hopes of finding out anything about that old mystery.

\---

After their afternoon in Hogsmeade, Dean and Castiel had become friends.

Dean was surprised the first time he ran into the other boy wandering the corridors around the Gryffindor Tower, but soon he got used to meeting him around the castle in the pauses between lessons, or behind the Quidditch pitch after training, or near the lake in the rare sunny days.

Castiel didn't have many friends, as he himself confessed to Dean while they were skipping stones over the surface of the lake.

"My sister and all my cousins are in Slytherin," Castiel said. "Everyone in my family has been a Slytherin. When I was sorted into Hufflepuff they... didn't take it well."

He frowned as he said that, slowly, choosing his words with care. It was clearly a sore subject for him.

"But you're in your third year," Dean said. "By now they've had time to get used to the idea, haven't they?"

Cas shook his head. "Gabriel says he doesn't care which House I'm in. But Raphael doesn't want the others to talk to me, and everyone always does what Raphael says, because he's the eldest."

Dean clenched his fist around the stone in his palm and wished he could throw it at Raphael.

"Raphael's a git," he snapped. "I was also disappointed when my brother ended up in a different House, but it's not like that's Sam's fault."

He didn't tell Cas that sometimes it still felt like it was. The memory of when he'd argued with his brother, of that first month that they'd spent without talking to each other, was too ugly to share. Dean felt his cheeks burn at the thought that he'd been as stupid as Raphael.

"You're a better person that my cousin, Dean," Castiel said.

The remark caught Dean off guard as he was about to throw his stone. It slipped from his fingers and sunk into the lake with a small _splash_.

Every once in a while Castiel came out with embarrassing remarks like that, maybe because he wasn't used to talking with people, or maybe because he lived in his own little world. He was a strange boy, but his company was by far preferable to the chaos that reigned in the Gryffindor common room in these days.

Castiel listened to Dean's complains without saying anything and without offering stupid advice. Sure, everything Cas said was completely devoid of tact, but he didn't do it on purpose. Once Dean was walking back from the Quidditch pitch on a rainy afternoon, soaked wet and in a black mood, and Cas had asked him how his team was doing. His face had been perfectly innocent as he asked, as if it wasn't obvious that training had been a waste of time and his team was a complete mess, thank you very much. It had taken all of Dean's self-control to stop from lashing out at him.

Aside from incidents like that, the two of them were getting along very well. Dean persuaded Castiel to start collecting Chocolate Frog cards, and Cas helped him with Herbology homework. Castiel knew much more than Dean about herbs and plants, despite being two years below him. Dean had no idea how he'd managed it so far, without Castiel helping him write his essays and explaining about the properties of aconite between hands of poker.

\---

Towards the beginning of December, Dean wrote a letter to his father to tell him that the term would end in two weeks and to ask if he was planning to meet Dean and Sam at King's Cross when they came home for the holidays. The answer, which came next week, was that John didn't know if he'd be working on that day, they were very busy in the shop at the moment and maybe it was better that he and Sam waited before making any plans.

"It means he doesn't want us around," Sam said after Dean handed him the letter.

"That's not true," Dean insisted. "Dad's busy, that's all."

Sam shook his head. "Whatever," he said. They'd had that conversation too many times. "I'm going to tell Professor D'Eath that I'm staying at Hogwarts for Christmas."

Professor D'Eath, tall and skeletal, was the Transfiguration teacher and the Head of Ravenclaw. Dean tarried when Singer asked the Gryffindor students for the list of those who would remain at school, waiting for his father to write him that he'd taken some time off and would be waiting for them at King's Cross. He sent two more owls but the answers remained vague.

In the end, on the last Monday before holidays started, he had to go and ask Singer to add him to the list of those staying. Singer didn't say anything, but from his look of pity Dean guessed that he'd been on that list for a while already. At breakfast on Tuesday, Dean got a letter in which John Winchester informed him that he'd be working through all the Christmas period. Dad apologized to him and Sam and promised that he wound send their presents via owl.

When Dean handed him the letter, Sam was so dejected that he didn't even bother to say "I told you so", though under the circumstances maybe Dean would have deserved it.

\---

"Your brother is sad because Jess is going home for the holidays," Becky confided outside greenhouse four.

Dean blew on his fingers to warm them. The Ravenclaws had just finished their lessons and her classmates were going back to the castle as fast as they could, but the cold didn't seem to bother Becky. As for Dean, he was looking forward to the welcoming warmth of the greenhouse. He didn't care about gossip, and anyway Sam was sad because they'd be spending Christmas at Hogwarts, not because of a stupid girl.

"I've got to go," Dean said, pointing towards the greenhouse. "Professor Missouri's about to begin the lesson, I don't want to be late." He was always late for his lessons, to the annoyance of his teachers, but Becky didn't know that.

She beamed at him. "Of course," she said. "Me too, my next lesson is Divination and it's at the opposite side of the castle." However she didn't seem in any hurry to leave. She took a deep breath and said, so quickly that the words were all mashed together, "Do you want to go to Hogsmeade with me next weekend?"

Dean had almost forgotten his half promise to sometimes go out with her. A lie more than a promise, truth to be told. He flirted with the idea of accepting the invitation and going on a date with Becky, if he played his cards right there might be a kiss under the mistletoe in it for him. But that thought didn't stir him very much.

"Sorry, I've got a prior commitment for that afternoon," he said, and then he retreated into the greenhouse before Becky could ask him what that was.

It wasn't a complete lie. He and Castiel had planned to do their Christmas shopping together, because Dean didn't trust his father to be punctual and he didn't want Sam to have no presents on Christmas morning.

They walked together up the little street lined with shops, chatting and pointing at the items on display in the windows. Cas still didn't seem inclined to buy anything for himself but at least he was finally getting used to browsing the shops like a normal person. Now it was him who kept drawing Dean's attention to the weirdest items on sale.

"What about this?" he asked, picking up a giant shapeless cable sweater. It was red and green, with a cartoonish reindeer on the front, and when Cas touched it the reindeer started singing Jingle Bells with a high, tinny voice that drew the attention of everyone in the shop.

Dean shook his head. "I don't think Sam would appreciate," he said, moving to another shelf.

Cas, who had no concept of acceptable presents versus irremediably tacky crap, gave the sweater a last long look before putting it back. "Your brother doesn't like reindeer?" he asked, head slightly tilted to the side.

"Maybe I could give him a pair of gloves," Dean said, changing the subject. He examined a few pairs, critically: they were all in garish colours and adorned with huge ponpons.

"Those ponpons are very cute," Cas said, while at the same time Dean huffed, "Those things look like they were knitted by someone colour-blind."

Cas pouted. "I like them," he said, hands wrapped protectively around his own scarf. "The wool is so soft!"

They didn't see anything that they both liked in the shop, so they tried Scrivenshaft's and then Dervish & Banges. In this last shop there were many more things that Sam might have liked, and Cas's mood improved greatly when he managed to talk Dean into choosing a set of magical chess. It was just the kind of thing that Sam would get into, huge nerd that he was, though he'd have to ask someone else to teach him how to play because Dean was an awful chess player.

At Honeydukes, Dean chose a deluxe box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Bean for Victor. He didn't have any more presents to buy, since he was angry with both Gordon and his father. Castiel bought some assorted sweets and enough marshmallows to feed a small army.

The shop was crowded and the queue in front of the cashier was very long.

"I thought you said you didn't eat so many sweets?" Dean asked while they were waiting for their turn.

"I followed the advice you gave me last time and I shared them with my team," Cas said. "They were all very happy and thanked me." He said it in a very serious voice, as if he was relating the results of some tricky experiment in potion-making. As if before meeting Dean he didn't know that kids liked sweets.

Dean smiled and shook his head. "You're hopeless," he said. Then he had an idea. "I'll be right back, save my spot in the queue," he said, putting his candy on top of the boxes Castiel was holding.

He rushed out of the shop and went back to Gladrags, walking straight towards the horrible sweaters that Cas liked so much. The reindeer sweater was too expensive for his meagre savings, but he found a similar sweater with an angel on the front. Dean checked that the angel didn't sing before buying it, then shoved the sweater in the bag with Sam's presents and went back to Cas.

Castiel was still queueing when Dean walked, slightly out of breath, into Honeydukes. "Is everything okay, Dean?" Cas asked.

"Yeah, I had forgotten something," Dean said, and luckily the other boy didn't press him more.

Dean decided that their last stop would be the village pub, The Three Broomsticks. Castiel's cheeks were red from the wind, despite his scarf, and Dean needed to warm up before starting the long walk back to the castle. Many other students had had the same idea and the place was so crowded that for a minute Dean despaired of finding a seat. They finally found a table next to the window, so small and so crammed next to the other tables that Dean couldn't even move without bumping into his neighbour. Dean ordered a Butterbeer while Castiel studied the list for hours before finally settling on hot chocolate with whipped cream and cinnamon sprinkles.

There was a lull in the conversation while they were waiting for their orders to arrive. Dean didn't know what else to talk about and Cas was just staring at him. It was a bit like being on a first date, but usually Dean solved those impasses by telling the girl that she had beautiful eyes. Cas's eyes were very blue, Dean noticed, but that didn't help him at all. He wasn't going to tell Cas that he had beautiful eyes.Even though Cas was so used to weirdness that he wouldn't think it a strange thing to say. Even though it was true.

Dean cleared his throat and said the first thing that came to his mind. "How are your Divination lessons going?"

Castiel's face brightened. "Professor Wilson said that after the holidays we'll start on tea leaves," he said.

Dean didn't know Wilson, but Castiel insisted that she was a true Seer. By the time their drinks arrived, Castiel was telling him everything he knew from library books about tea leaves.

"I'd like to be able to tell the future," Cas said. "But Professor Wilson says it takes years of practice to be able to read the signs correctly, and tea leaves are particularly hard."

"You can practice reading the future in the chocolate," Dean said. He wasn't too surprised when Castiel didn't understand that it was a joke.

"I'm not sure that's a real divination technique," he said, staring at his cup with a slightly puzzled expression. "My textbook doesn't mention it."

Dean refrained from making any more jokes and finished his Butterbeer, then pushed a napkin towards Castiel so he could wipe off his chocolate moustache.


	6. The scarlet scarf

The castle suddenly fell silent when the Christmas holidays began. Everyone else in his year had gone home, and under normal circumstances Dean would have felt depressed for being all alone in his dormitory, but after the last few weeks it was a relief not to have to argue with Gordon as he brushed his teeth or put on his pajamas.

Dean went back to the Gryffindor Tower only to sleep: the rest of the time was spent with Sam, Cas and Gabriel.

It had been a surprise to find out that the two Miltons hadn't gone home for the holidays. Dean imagined that their families lived in a huge manor with armies of house elves at their beck and call. Their Christmases were surely filled with huge trees covered with decorations, hundreds of festive wreaths, dozens of roasted turkeys and even more relatives, aunts and uncles and cousins visiting for the holidays.

"Too many cousins," was Gabriel's answer when Dean brought up the subject. He grimaced. "I already have to deal with them during the rest of the year, I can't bear the thought of seeing their ugly mugs at Christmas too." At those words Castiel looked down, and when Gabriel noticed he pinched his cheek. "Don't worry, Cassie, _your_ mug is very cute."

At first Dean was afraid that Gabriel would be a nuisance and ruin their holidays with his constant pestering, but Gabriel rose in everyone's estimation when he convinced Professor Singer to let them use the empty Care of Magical Creatures classroom. At the far end of the room there was a small fireplace that the class sometimes used when they were studying fire creatures, and it was the perfect place to roast Cas's marshmallows.

"How the hell did you manage to talk Singer into this?" Dean asked around a mouthful of marshmallows. Blueberry and banana this time, everyone's tongue was already turning blue. Dean was impressed by Gabriel's achievement: despite being Singer's favourite even Dean himself didn't think he'd be allowed to have the keys to his classroom for the whole Christmas period.

Gabriel gave him a smirk of superiority. "I explained that it was extremely important to create unity between students from different Houses," he said. "I might have also let it slip that if he refused my plan B was to light a bonfire in the library."

Sam seemed horrified by the very thought, but Dean decided that he could tolerate Gabriel's company. At least while the marshmallows lasted.

On Christmas morning Dean found a single wrapped present waiting for him at the foot of his bed. For a moment he thought dad had remembered to mail something after all, but then he noticed the note written in Victor's tall and narrow hand.

 _Merry Christmas, Winchester!_ the note said. _Don't eat them all at once._

Dean didn't need to open the present to know that it contained a box of Chocolate Frogs, as always. Both him and Victor were always at a loss for ideas when it came to giving each other presents. It was lucky that Castiel had helped him pick something for Sam, otherwise Dean would have ended up getting his brother sweets too. Not that there was anything wrong with getting or giving sweets, but Dean wanted to give Sammy something that would last. Something to remind his kid brother that he still had a family.

Dean dressed in a hurry and got Sam's and Castiel's presents from his trunk. It seemed silly to send them by owl when he could deliver them in person.

The corridors were cold and draughty and Dean walked as quickly as possible to avoid turning into a human icicle. Sam and the others were already in the Great Hall, sitting at the Ravenclaw table. The tables were almost completely empty during the holidays, and Dean and the others had quickly decided to ignore the division between Houses and just sit together during meals. Professor Crowley had complained about that, but Professor Missouri had given him such a glare that the usually terrifying Potions Master immediately shut up and dropped the subject.

That morning it was snowing, and the ceiling of the Great Hall reflected the colour of the sky outside, white-grey and clouded. Large snowflakes were also falling down, but they were just an illusion, enchanted to disappear before they touched the students' heads. When Dean approached Sammy and the others he noticed that there was a large box sitting in the middle of the Ravenclaw table.

"Dean!" Sammy exclaimed as soon as he saw his brother, without as much as saying hello. "Dad sent us a present!"

Dean was about to wish everyone Merry Christmas but the words died on his lips. He put aside his other parcels and knelt on the bench next to Sam. "What is it?" he asked, narrowing his eyes at the box.

"I don't know," Sam replied. "I was waiting for you, to open it together."

"Take your time," Gabriel drawled. "It's not as if we were waiting for you before starting breakfast..."

Dean ignored him. He was trying not to think about what would be inside the box, surely it was something stupid, John Winchester had sent them something so they'd forgive him for being a failure as a parent, but a toy wouldn't be enough to stop Dean from being angry.

He and Sam both grabbed an edge of the coloured paper wrapped around the box and ripped it away. Inside there was a book, a huge volume bound in leather. At first Dean didn't understand what it was, why their dad had sent them a book or why he hadn't at least given them a book each, but he pulled the volume in front of himself and opened a page at random.

"It's a photo book," Castiel said after a moment, and Dean held his breath.

All of the pages were full of photos of his mother. There were photos of Mary playing with a friend as a little girl, Mary with her parents, Mary in her Gryffindor quidditch uniform... The photos went on for years, until the more recent ones in which Mary was holding a newborn Sam and a much younger Dean was watching his brother sleep.

"I thought he hadn't kept any photo of mum," Dean said, brushing the page. He couldn't take his eyes away. As he watched, baby Sammy moved and Mary tucked the blanket gently around him.

There was a card peeking out from between the pages, probably bought at a Muggle store because the cover felt like plastic and the cartoonish Santa Claus on the front didn't move. "I asked Ellen if she had any photos of your mum," Sam read. "I'm sorry I couldn't give it to you in person. Merry Christmas. Dad."

Dean turned aside and quickly dabbed at his eyes with the sleeve of his sweater. I'm not crying, he told himself, it's the stupid snow that got in my eyes. Even though the snow melted long before touching them.

To hide his confusion he gave Sam his present. "I've got something for you too," he said. It was nothing compared to the photo album, but Sam liked the chessboard very much.

Sam had a present for Dean too, a little statuette of a dragon that had been enchanted to move as if it was alive. "It's okay if you don't like it," Sam said, fidgeting. "I ordered it by mail, I didn't know what to get you." Dean complained that he liked it very much, and they all looked for a while as the dragon marched back and forth along the table, bumping against cutlery and napkins.

Finally, Dean gave Cas his present. "This is for you," he mumbled, shoving the parcel towards him. Suddenly he felt embarrassed because it was obvious that Cas wasn't expecting anything and had been caught unawares.

"But I didn't get you anything," Cas complained. "You shouldn't have!"

"It's nothing," Dean lied, and he held his breath while Cas unwrapped the sweater. "If you don't like it, you can change it with something else... I don't even know if it's the right size..."

Castiel's face brightened. "It's beautiful," he said, and immediately put it on over his other clothes. "Thank you, Dean!" He looked funny, so bundled up and with his hair all mussed, and Dean smiled back.

"If the two of you are finished flirting, can we please have breakfast?" Gabriel complained. "I'm starving."

\---

The remainder of the holidays was spent having snowball fights, exploring the castle's secret passages and (when Sam and Cas insisted) doing homework. Sometimes Professor Singer peered inside the Care of Magical Creatures classroom to check that nothing had blown up yet. If he was in a good mood the boys would talk him into staying for tea, and Singer would help them write their essays and tell them how in his youth he'd gone to South America to study the Peruvian Vipertooths.

In the evenings they lit the fireplace, though the marshmallows were sadly long gone. Sam and Gabriel played chess, or rather Gabriel beat Sam at Sam and taunted him about his lack of strategy, while Dean and Cas watched them play and talked about nothing in particular. Dean wasn't a very good player, but Castiel insisted that Sam was quickly getting better and soon he'd be able to hold his own against Gabriel.

January came too soon, the holidays ended and all the students returned to the castle. With lessons and quidditch keeping him busy, Dean no longer had much time to spend with people from other Houses. Sam was once again spending every moment of free time with Jess, and Gabriel was back with his clique of insufferable cousins.

Only Castiel seemed to have no other friends to hang out with. Dean knew that the Hufflepuff team was also busy with practice, he often saw them fly over the quidditch pitch, but that didn't stop Cas from showing up in front of Dean whenever he had a moment. Dean began expecting that soft "Hello, Dean" and the sight of Castiel standing in the middle of the corridor, looking vaguely lost.

Dean went to see Hufflepuff's match against Ravenclaw together with Victor and the rest of his team. He shouldn't have rooted for anyone, or at most he should have rooted for Ravenclaw because it was his brother's team. It was bad for Hufflepuff to win, because with two matches won Hufflepuff would have been in first place. Despite that, Dean couldn't help but cheer when Castiel caught the snitch with a move that was nothing short of brilliant.

"He's good," Victor said, dry. "They're all good. They'll give us a run for our galleons when we face them."

"Worry about Slytherin first," Dean replied. "They may not be as good, but that's no reason to keep our guard down." Everyone agreed that this year Slytherin was in bad shape, and the thought of losing against them didn't bear thinking about.

The day of the match against Slytherin, Dean woke up in a mood as black as the sky over Hogwarts. His pre-match pep talk was almost a threat: let's win, or else.

"Let's go thrash those bastards!" Gordon yelled, raising his beater bat against the ceiling of the changing room. Dean sighed and crossed his fingers.

It started raining shortly after the referee blew the whistle, a heavy rain that soaked their clothes and made it hard to see the snitch. Gabriel's voice, magically amplified, was barely audible over the sound of pouring water. He seemed to be saying something irreverent and unrelated to the game. Dean ignored him and flew a loop over the field, concentrating over his search for the snitch.

It was easier to pretend that he was playing on his own, without public and without Slytherins and without Gabriel's comments and even without his own team who was making a mess of things somewhere down below. Sometimes he head the referee when she whistled a foul, and Gordon's voice raised in protest. They were losing a hundred points to sixty, Gabriel's voice informed him at some point, as he was flying close to the stands, but Dean kept ignoring him. All that mattered was to catch the snitch before the other team.

Finally he saw it, almost on the edge of the field. Slytherin's seeker was one of the countless Miltons, Uriel from seventh year. He was a veteran, but he was also large and lumbering and slow. Dean had no problems flinging himself towards the snitch and catching it before Uriel had even noticed what was going on.

"I caught it!" Dean yelled, and Gabriel echoed him, until the referee also noticed and signalled the end of the match, Gryffindor beats Slytherin two hundred and twenty points to one hundred and twenty. Uriel landed with a huge splash in a puddle in front of Dean and swore.

Dean was in such a good mood that he felt like he could ignore all of Gordon's digs today. Before the match he would have yelled at him about sending bludgers against his own teammates, which according to Victor was what had happened during the match, but for the time being he didn't want to kill the joyful atmosphere that reigned among the team.

"Party in the common room," Chris and Gwen announced. "Hurry up or Ronald will eat everything before we're even there!"

"Hey!" Ronald complained, but he ran towards the castle with everyone else.

Dean stayed back. He was soaked to the bone and needed a long hot shower to get rid of the chill in his bones.

When he walked out of the changing rooms about half an hour later, hugging his cloak around himself to avoid getting wet again, Castiel was out there waiting for him.

For a moment Dean didn't recognize the boy, wrapped as he was in a huge and fluffy red scarf, but that "Hello, Dean" was unmistakeable.

"Cas," Dean said, ducking under the huge umbrella that Castiel was holding up. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to watch the match," he replied, as if that explained the fact that he'd been lurking outside the changing rooms dressed like a Gryffindor. As if he'd read Dean's mind, he started taking off his scarf with his free hand. "I'm happy you won."

"You shouldn't be," Dean replied. "Now Gryffindor and Hufflepuff have two wins each, it's going to be a tough last match."

Castiel's face was impassible. "Isn't that for the best?" he said, his voice slightly muffled by the scarf. "Both our teams are strong, it's going to be a good match."

He tried to tug at his scarf again. It was wrapped tightly around his face, and he didn't seem able to get it off with just one hand.

"You're hopeless," Dean said, and he didn't himself know if he was talking about the scarf or quidditch or something else. "Stay still." He leaned forward and in a few moments he undid the scarf's knot. "Here you go," he said, folding the scarf haphazardly and holding it out for Castiel.

Castiel gripped the umbrella's handle with both hands and shook his head. "I did it for you," he said. His blue eyes were very wide and were watching Dean carefully. "It's my belated Christmas present."

Dean looked down at the scarf. It was a bright scarlet colour, Gryffindor scarlet, and the border was sometimes irregular, but it was very soft. "You did it?" he repeated, feeling the wool between his fingers. It was still warm from being wrapped around Cas. Dean smiled at the thought of Castiel knitting in the evenings in front of the fireplace in Hufflepuff's common room, looking serious and sticking out his tongue in concentration.

Castiel nodded. "It was very nice of you to give me a present for Christmas and I didn't reciprocate," he said. "I'm sorry it took me so long, I wanted to make you a sweater but I'm still a beginner and I can only make scarves."

"Thank you," Dean said, and he put on the scarf. It was so long that he had to wrap it three times around his neck to stop the ends from trailing on the ground. Surely now he looked as bundled up as Castiel. Dean didn't usually wear scarves, especially not scarves that were so horrifically huge, but it must have taken Castiel _days_ to finish this thing. "I like it very much," he said.

Castiel smiled at that, relieved. Dean would have happily stayed to chat and talk about the match, but his teammates and the rest of his house were probably waiting for him in the common room.

"See you around," he told Castiel, and he ran off towards the castle, pulling his cloak's hood over his head to keep the scarf from getting soaked.


	7. The Demons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To celebrate the fact that someone commented on this fic again and reminded me that it existed, have another chapter! In this one, Dean pulls a Harry Potter. Next chapter is the last one, and it may be published in a few days or a few years! We just don't know!

Sam insisted that Dean should keep the album of photographs. Dean had tried to complain, arguing that it wasn't fair on Sam, but the album was massive and they couldn't keep carrying back and forth between the tower of Gryffindor and the tower of Ravenclaw, like Dean suggested. So Sam had taken for himself a single photograph (the one with Mary and the two of them as babies, unsticked carefully from the page to avoid damaging it) and Dean kept the album in the trunk at the foot of his bed.

Sometimes Dean took out the album and leafed through it, trying to picture which kind of person his mother had been, what her favourite subjects were, and whether she had found all the secret passages that Dean had. Dean had always wondered about those things, but now that he had the photos in front of his eyes it was easy to guess that Mary had been captain of the quidditch team and Ellen was her best friend.

One Sunday morning he was sprawled on his bed, with the photo album open on the page of the graduation ceremony. There was a group shot with all of the students who had graduated that year, a photo of Mary alone holding her diploma in one hand and her wand in the other, and also a photo in which Mary was shaking hands with a funny-looking moustachioed man that Dean supposed had been the headmaster back in her time.

A sudden movement caught his eyes. One of the people in the background had turned towards him for a moment, and Dean had the feeling he'd already seen that wizard somewhere. It made no sense, Dean didn't know anyone who'd been at Hogwarts twenty years before. He kept staring at the photo until the wizard turned around again, and when he recognized him, Dean startled: it was Professor Azazel. He was almost unrecognisable, with shorter hair and without his usual glasses, but Dean would have bet his broomstick that it was him.

Dean clutched the album to his chest and ran down to the common room. Victor and Pam were playing Exploding Snaps in a corner. "Look at this," Dean said, slamming the book down on the table in front of Victor.

Some cards fell down on the floor, exploding with a loud popping sound. "Hey!" Victor complained, but he still bent down on the book. "What am I supposed to be looking at?"

"Here," Dean said, pointing. He poked and prodded at the other people in the photo to make them move away. His mother and the headmaster looked offended, and Dean mentally apologized. "Look, don't you think that's Professor Azazel?"

Victor frowned, then nodded. "You're right, it's Azazel," he said.

Pam also leaned forward, bending down on the photo until her nose almost brushed the page to see it better. "It's really him," she agreed. "I didn't know he'd already taught here years ago."

"Not just _years ago_ ," Dean said, struck by a sudden thought. "Azazel was at Hogwarts about twenty years ago. That was the time of the Demon attacks, wasn't it?"

Pam and Victor glared at him. "Even if it was, so what? He was a teacher long ago and he didn't say anything about it. No big deal." Victor asked. " _Accio Cards._ " He picked up the cards from the floor and started shuffling them.

"I bet he knows more than anyone about the Demons," Dean insisted. "Don't you want to find out more about this mystery?"

Victor shrugged. "The only mystery here is who would have won if you hadn't interrupted our game."

Dean huffed and left them to it. He went back to his dormitory to put the album back in the trunk and, after a moment's hesitation, he tossed the scarlet scarf on his shoulders, even though it was nearly too hot to wear it now.

He found Castiel in the Library, bent over a massive tome about wild medicinal herbs of Scotland, but Castiel pushed the book away when Dean sat down next to him.

"Hello, Dean," he said.

"Cas," Dean said. "Got a minute? I want your opinion on a thing."

Castiel cocked his head, and Dean told him everything he'd found out. "Maybe Azazel is one of the professors who left because they were afraid to be kidnapped," he finished with a smirk. "And he's ashamed to let on that he's been a huge coward."

But Castiel shook his head. "That's impossible," he said with certainty. "My family says that Headmaster Shurley convinced all the professors who left to come back within a few months. He promised them that they'd be safe, and it was true. That's why everyone holds him in high regard, even those who don't like half-bloods."

Dean looked at him with envy. He hadn't even known that the headmaster was a half-blood. It must be nice to grow up in a family of witches and wizards, knowing all those things.

He frowned. "Still, if Azazel left Hogwarts twenty years ago, he's got to know something about the Demons. It can't be a coincidence. He didn't run away, otherwise the headmaster would have talked him into coming back," he said, and Castiel nodded at that. "But he can't be one of the professors who were kidnapped, everyone knows those never came back. So..."

He paused, because accusing one of his professors of being a dark wizard was a little too much, even for him. Castiel looked at him and looked imperturbable as always.

"Singer told me to be careful about Azazel," Dean said, suddenly remembering their conversation several weeks before. "He as good as told me that Azazel was at Hogwarts at the time of the Demons, but I didn't figure it out. I thought he was just playing around, you know, like you'd threaten a First Year: _if you make a ruckus in the corridors, the Demons will take ya away_!" he said, in a passable imitation of Singer's voice. He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Do you think it's possible that Singer is one of them?"

Castiel bit his lip and didn't answer immediately. "One of the Demons?" he mused. For a moment Dean feared that Castiel would give him the same dismissive answer as Victor and Pam, but Castiel seemed unsure. "I don't know. It's a plausible hypothesis. If he was, what would you do?"

Dean hadn't even thought about it. "No idea," he admitted. "First I want to find out more."

\---

However, finding information on Professor Azazel was easier said than done. Nobody ever talked openly about the Demons, and Dean certainly couldn't ask the other professors if their colleague was a dark wizard. He tried asking Professor Singer again, but he only received a glare for his troubles and an order to keep his nose out of other people's business.

Castiel tried asking Professor Missouri but, despite being nicer and well-disposed towards her star pupil, she had been at Hogwarts for less than ten years and so she couldn't shed any light on the mystery of Azazel.

Finally, Castiel managed to get permission to borrow from the Library a mouldy tome that was a record of everyone who had taught at Hogwarts ever since the 1700s. In a small and cramped hand, one of the last pages contained the line _A. Azazel, held the post of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher for six years between 19... and 19..., newly appointed as Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher_. The year Azazel had left Hogwarts was the one of the Demon attacks.

"It can't be a coincidence!" Dean exclaimed when Castiel read the paragraph aloud.

Castiel shook his head. "So what do you want to do?"

That night, Dean waited for everyone to fall asleep and then tiptoed out of his dormitory and out of the Common Room without making a sound. The Fat Lady woke up when Dean opened the passage, but she was still too sleepy and before she could think to ask "Who's there?" Dean had already disappeared behind a corner.

He waited for Castiel in the secret staircase that led from the first to the third floor. It was a handy passage because not many knew about it, and while he was hiding in there the odds of being discovered by the Caretaker or by a professor were zero. Of course, once he ventured outside in the corridors, he'd have to rely on his luck.

For a while he thought Castiel wouldn't come. The Hufflepuff kid looked too much like a model student, Dean was sure he'd never broken a school rule in his life. Dean wouldn't have been surprised if Cas had changed his mind and gone to bed rather than risking expulsion.

It was past midnight when Castiel finally showed up, walking slowly and holding one hand against the wall to balance himself in the darkness.

"Dean," he whispered, and Dean put one finger on his lips even though Cas couldn't see him.

"Sssh!" he hissed. He twitched aside the tapestry covering one end of the passage and, after checking that nobody was around, took Castiel's hand and dragged him into the corridor.

It wasn't the first time that Dean had been around the castle after curfew, and he knew his way around. A few minutes later they were in front of Professor Azazel's office.

Dean turned to look at Castiel, barely visible in the moonlight filtering in through the windows. "Last chance to go back to bed," he said. Castiel didn't reply, but he shook his head silently, not at all inclined to leave. Dean grinned. " _Alohomora_ ," he whispered, tapping the lock with his wand.

The door creaked open, and the sound made Dean jump. He was sure everyone in the castle had heard, and soon enough people were going to show up and demand an explanation from him. He tensed and prepared to run for it, but as several long seconds passed and nobody showed up to put them in detention, Dean breathed a sigh of relief and motioned for Cas to follow him into the office.

Once they'd closed the door behind themselves, they felt safe enough to whisper a quick _Lux_ so their wands cast enough light to see by. "What are we looking for?" Castiel asked in a hushed breath.

"I dunno," Dean said. He started opening the drawers of Azazel's desk at random, while Castiel browsed the volumes on his bookshelves.

There were a lot of mysterious items in the office. Dean didn't know what half of them were for, but they looked dangerous enough to make him not want to touch them. He stopped in front of a bottle full of dark liquid.

"Ew!" he exclaimed."Is this blood?"

"It could be," Castiel replied, without taking his eyes away from the book he was reading. "Dean... Those books are all about dark magic. The kind of magic that's so dangerous, it's not even taught in the seventh year's Defence class." He frowned, one finger tracing the diagram drawn on one of the pages. "I shouldn't be reading this book. We shouldn't be here at all..."

"No," confirmed a voice behind Dean. "You shouldn't."

Dean and Cas turned suddenly, Dean pointing his wand at Professor Azazel.

"We..." Dean began. "We know what you did!"

"Really, Mr Winchester?" he replied, twisting his mouth. "I doubt that. Put down that wand before someone gets hurt."

Dean's fingers tightened their grip as Azazel took his own wand from a pocket in his cloak, but the professor simply waved it around to light a lantern. Then he pointed towards the door.

"Hurry up, I don't have all night," he said. "Follow me."

Dean felt his throat go dry. "Are you taking us to your master?" he asked.

Azazel threw him a strange look and didn't reply.

It was worse than Dean and Cas could have imagined. Azazel took them to Headmaster Shurley.

\---

The headmaster was wearing a dressing gown and fluffy slippers, and he'd never looked scarier to Dean

Dean tried to make up a convincing lie that would explain why he and Cas were riffling through a professor's things at one in the morning, but there was no excuse good enough when they'd been caught red-handed.

Castiel, too, was completely unable to tell a lie. When Shurley sent for Professor Singer and Professor Missouri, Castiel went to pieces and he confessed everything, including the fact that they suspected Azazel to be one of the Demons. "There are books about the dark arts in his office," he said in a weak voice.

Singer grunted a dismissal. "What's your next big discovery going to be? Potions and poisons in Professor Crowley's laboratory?" he said, and Castiel lowered his head, mortified.

"It's not his fault!" Dean exclaimed. "It was my idea, I was the one who convinced Castiel to get out of bed after curfew. I'm the one you should punish."

"Of course you'll be punished, you idiot boy, you can be sure of that," Singer snapped. "I have no doubts this is another of your flights of fancy. But don't think that your accomplice will get away scot-free."

"No," Missouri agreed, shaking her head. She looked more sad than angry. "Mr Milton, I would have never expected this from you. Fifty points from Hufflepuff and a week of detention. Would you say that's fair, Azazel?"

He nodded. "You two are lucky I found you when I did," he said. "There is a reason why my office kept under lock and key, you might have lost more than House points if you had kept snooping around my books." He seemed almost amused at the thought.

Singer just shrugged. "Fifty points from Gryffindor, too, and a week of detention for the other idiot." Dean was sure that, if it had been up to him alone, Singer would have given him a much harsher punishment.

Castiel's face had gone white. He probably had never lost a single point during his whole time at Hogwarts. Dean wanted above everything to apologize to him, because he'd been a complete idiot and it was his fault that they were in this mess, but he didn't dare speak in front of the professors.

Shurley sighed and scratched his unshaven chin. "I have no doubt that if I didn't say anything, you'd keep bothering Professor Azazel about the Demons." He turned towards Azazel and asked, "Can I tell them?"

Azazel pursed his lips. "When I came back, you promised nobody would drag up the past," he said. But then he gave a curt nod. "Go ahead, if you must."

"As you know," the headmaster told Dean and Cas, "the Demons were a group of sorcerers who studied the dark arts. Professor Azazel was one of them." Dean opened his mouth, but before he could say anything the headmaster shut him up with a gesture. "However, when he realized that the other members weren't simply studying the dark arts, that they were practising them, Professor Azazel left the group. It was thanks to his help that the Aurors were able to apprehend all of the Demons."

"Afterwards, I thought it better to lie low for a while and went to America. My betrayal made me somewhat unpopular among my old friends," Azazel said with a wry smirk. "So I would be grateful if you kept this story to yourself." It sounded like a threat. Knowing him, it was certainly a threat.

Singer escorted Dean back to the tower of Gryffindor, "To keep you from getting into trouble again, idiot boy," and Dean had no chance to apologize to Cas.


	8. Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff

After the headmaster and the professors, Dean had to face his housemates. Vincent was Dean's best friend and he was used to him getting into all sorts of trouble, but even he was shocked at the thought that Dean had broken into a teacher's office.

Dean didn't say anything about looking for proof that Azazel was one of the Demons, because Azazel would have skinned him alive if he found out that Dean was telling his secrets. And besides, the more Dean thought about it, the more it sounded moronic to him. Surely the headmaster knew more about the Demons than a couple of students, and he would have looked into Azazel before hiring him. Dean felt like an idiot for not having thought about it before.

The worst part about the whole ordeal was that Singer set up Dean's detention so that for the whole next week he wouldn't have a single moment of free time. Until the end of the lessons until dinner time, and then for three hours after dinner, Dean had to report to the Librarian and sit down in a corner to copy a bunch of scrolls about the history of the school, so old and faded that they were liable to crumble into dust as soon as you looked at them.

"I won't even have time to study and do my homework," Dean complained when Singer told him about his detention.

"I didn't think you'd be so worried about your grades," Singer replied. "You could always study during the night, since it looks like you don't need sleep."

He was also forced to skip all Quidditch practice. Sulking all the while, Dean explained the situation to the team and gave Victor the schemes of the new strategies that they'd practice during the week.

"Don't worry, we'll do our best even without you," Victor said, giving him a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

"Yeah, Winchester, don't worry," Gordon said, sounding everything but reassuring.

Then, as Dean was walking back from the Quidditch pitch towards the first of many evenings in the Library, he ran into the Hufflepuff team. Castiel was there, too, hanging behind his teammates with a downcast expression on his face. He was spending his detention in Greenhouse Four, so Dean hadn't been able to talk to him yet.

Dean didn't know what he was going to say to Cas, but he had to say something. Guilt was still gnawing at him for having landed the other kid into this mess. He was about to ask Cas for a word in private, but Tessa stepped forward, arms crossed, and blocked his way.

"I always knew you were trouble, Winchester," Tessa said. For once, she didn't look quite as calm and collected. She was almost shaking with suppressed rage. "I shouldn't have let you drag Castiel into one of your mad adventures."

Dean looked at his shoes like they were new and fascinating items. "I didn't mean to get him into trouble," he said, truthfully. "It's all my fault, not his."

Tessa didn't unbend. "That's for sure," she said. "Though I also blame myself for not stopping you when you started hanging around Castiel. I should have known you would be trouble."

Dean hung his head. He couldn't argue with that. So Tessa kept talking.

"I shouldn't have talked Castiel into becoming your friend just so he could spy on your team's strategies. You could have got him expelled. It wasn't worth it at all."

"You _what_?!" Dean spat out. He couldn't believe that fair-playing, rule-abiding Tessa would do anything of the sort. "You had Cas spy on me?"

"Of course," Tessa replied, unruffled. "I figured it would only be fair to pay you back in kind, since that's why you were trying to befriend Castiel in the first place. He might have been fooled by your act, but I know better. I told him to be careful around you. After all, if you weren't after something, why would you bother spending time with Castiel?"

Dean wanted to shout denial in her face, but Castiel was right there, looking at him with those imperturbable blue eyes. Had it really been all a lie, all just so Castiel could spy on the Gryffindor team. He wanted to say no, but then again, Castiel never spent time with anyone so why would he make an exception for Dean? I thought we were friends, he wanted to tell Cas. Instead what came out of him mouth was, "Yeah, why would I bother with someone like him?"

He didn't even look at Castiel as he said that, and Castiel left without a word.

\---

When Singer finally released him from his week-long detention, Dean threw himself into Quidditch practice with all he had. But even if he spent hours on the pitch every day, flying around until he was too tired to sit upright on his broomstick, he still wasn't able to forget the huge mess he'd made of everything.

Dean's absence had only worsened the situation with Gordon, who had decided that the team would do better without Dean.

"You're spending all your time with that freak Milton," yelled Gordon, after a particularly tense practice session. "You gotta choose, either you're with the team or you leave the team!"

"No, you're the one who has to choose!" Dean yelled back, going purple in the face.

Once in a while Dean saw the Hufflepuff team flying over the Quidditch pitch during training, seven yellow blurry dots in the distance, and he tried to guess which one was Cas. Then he got angry with himself, every single time, because it wasn't as if Castiel had ever been his friend so he shouldn't feel so broken-up about the whole thing.

He told himself time and again that he didn't need to feel guilty about landing Castiel in detention and making him lose points for Hufflepuff, since Castiel had been just a spy. But he still missed talking with Cas, or even just talking while the other kid listened, his eyes blue and wide. And he didn't know why.

The only thing he knew for sure, even without Cas there to tell him, was that the Hufflepuff team was doing much better than Gryffindor. They seemed very close during training, flying each scheme flawlessly the first time. Surely they didn't need to pause and land every ten minutes because Gordon had once again thrown a bludger at Ronald and Ronald had fallen from his broomstick.

They argued once too many times, and in the end Gordon quit the team, throwing his bat in the middle of the field with a dramatic gesture. There were only two weeks left until the final.

The team had to call an emergency meeting in the common room and ask for someone to replace Gordon. "Anyone's fine, as long as they can hold a bat," Victor pleaded. Next to him, Dean was fuming. It wasn't ideal, surely it wasn't the team he would have picked to play the final, but without a seventh player they wouldn't be able to play in the final at all.

Unfortunately there weren't many students willing to risk a bludger in the teeth in front of the whole school, especially with no time at all to train.

In the end, Victor had to go and plead with Professor Singer, asking him to lift the first year ban and let Harvelle play. She'd been the only one brave enough or foolish enough to volunteer.

Dean felt guilty, because as the captain he should have been the one to face Singer, but Victor pointed out that Dean wasn't exactly in Singer's graces right now and they couldn't risk a refusal. Victor came back after a long time, looking glum. "He said Harvelle can play," he said, forestalling the team's questions. "But he also said it makes no difference because Hufflepuff's going to destroy us."

\---

The match against Hufflepuff was the longest and most unnerving that Dean had ever played. Gryffindor and Hufflepuff were neck to neck for both the Quidditch Cup and the House Cup, and whoever won the match would win both. Dean walked on the field feeling butterflies in his stomach, and as time passed his nervousness grew, until he started feeling not just butterflies but a whole herd of wild dragons in his stomach.

Harvelle was a passable beater, but Ronald was so nervous he kept making rookie mistakes. At one point he completely missed the bludger he was aiming for and hit Chris in the back of his head, almost making him fall from his broomstick. Then, while Harvelle and Ronald were trying to defend Pam to let her score, another hit Gwen in the face.

"Not broken!" she yelled, her voice muffled by the hand she was holding up to block the blood flowing from her nose. "Keep playing!"

Dean tried to focus on the golden snitch only, but it was difficult to block out the match with Gabriel mercilessly mocking every mistake that Gryffindor made. Their beaters weren't used to working together, their chasers were too worried about their own safety to score, and Hufflepuff was thrashing them.

After one hour of play, the result was two hundred to seventy for Hufflepuff. If that went on for much longer, there would be no need for the snitch to decide the result. Dean flew another loop over the Quidditch pitch, keeping an eye on Castiel who was doing the same several feet higher up.

Gwen feinted, passed Tessa with a clever bit of flying, and scored. "That's how you do it!" Dean yelled, punching the air.

Then he turned and his heart skipped a beat. Castiel was flying straight for the snitch. It was hovering close to the grass, closer to Dean than Cas, but Cas was quickly gaining speed and he would get there first. Unless.

Dean gripped his broomstick and threw himself downwards. He barely registered Gabriel shouting something about the snitch, the noise of the wind in his ears was drowning out everything else. He accelerated until he was almost free-falling, narrowing his eyes to a slit and trying to see that flicker of gold, waiting until the very last moment before slowing.

He caught up with Cas, finally, and for one long second they were flying parallel to each other, until Cas slowed down, just a fraction but it was enough to allow Dean to pass him.

Dean held out one hand and caught the snitch, straightening his broomstick just in time to avoid crashing to the ground. He was flying so low, his feet brushed the grass on the pitch, but he didn't even notice that. The scarlet half of the stadium exploded.

The snitch fluttered its wings against Dean's fingers. Dean hovered in mid air, as if stunned, while Gabriel yelled the final score above the roar of the crowd.

"Two hundred and forty to two hundred! Gryffindor wins the match and the Quidditch Cup!"

"We won!" Harvelle yelled. She flew at Ronald and hugged him with so much force that they both almost fell from their broomstick.

Gwen, Christian and Pam were flying a victory loop over the stadium, flying so quickly that they were just three scarlet blurs.

"You did it, Winchester!" Victor yelled, and Dean held up the fist that still held the snitch.

"We did it!" Dean yelled back with a grin.

Finally they landed in a heap in the middle of the field, still exchanging hugs and pats on the back. The seven Hufflepuff players were already lined up.

"Congratulations," Tessa told Dean. "It was a good match."

Dean shook her hand. "You too," he said. "I'm sorry I accused you of wanting to cheat, you played really well."

Tessa gave him a sad smile. "Likewise. We'll try again next year."

Dean stepped past her to shake hands with the Hufflepuff keeper, and then with the two beaters. He was incredibly proud of their victory, and even prouder of the team. Harvelle had been an excellent player, and Gwen had managed to hold her own even though she was still shaking and had to lean on Chris for support. The only question mark had been himself, and his own capture of the snitch.

Castiel was standing at the end of the line, and he hesitantly held out one hand to Dean. "Congratulations, Dean," he said. He looked as calm as always, not quite as downcast as the other players. Dean had to ask.

"Cas," Dean muttered under his breath, "did you let me win on purpose?"

The other kid froze. "Why are you asking me?"

"You were closer," Dean said. "You should have got the snitch before me. Instead I caught it, and you don't even seem sad about it? Why?"

Cas shook his head. "I knew I wasn't going to catch the snitch if I slowed down, but I had to. Otherwise I was going to crash. When you didn't slow down, I thought _you_ would crash. I'm glad you didn't," he added, thoughtfully.

The thought of crashing hadn't even crossed Dean's mind. Maybe he should have been worried, but when he played there was only him and his opponent and the snitch. But he couldn't quite bring himself to admit it. "I'm glad too," he said.

"Of course," Castiel said, "you've got more experience and you're a much better player than me." He looked Dean straight in the eyes. "I could never have let you win on purpose, you wouldn't stand that. And I don't want you to be angry with me."

Typical of Cas. Dean didn't know how he could say this kind of things with a straight face. "I'm not angry with you," Dean said, finally realizing that it was the truth. "I was angry for a while, but then I realized that I don't blame you, not if you thought I was trying to spy on your team. I wasn't though." It was difficult to get the words out. Dean looked away. "I did have fun hanging out with you... at Hogsmeade, and even in the Library..."

"Me too," Castiel said, when Dean's voice trailed off awkwardly. "I had fun this year. Tessa told me to find out about your team's schemes, but I didn't. I don't think you're a bad person like she said. I like you, Dean."

When Dean smiled, Dean felt butterflies in his stomach again. But the match was over and there was no reason to be nervous any more. Unless he wasn't nervous about Quidditch, but rather about something else entirely.

Castiel, who liked marshmallows and Herbology books and tea leaves. Castiel, with his impossibly blue eyes, so blue that he didn't even look real. Stupid Castiel, who kept losing at poker and didn't understand jokes, who had given Dean a handmade scarf for Christmas. Dean couldn't even remember why they weren't speaking, the only thing he could think about was that he hadn't spoken to Castiel in weeks and it was stupid because he'd missed Castiel so much it had hurt. It was only then, standing in front of him in the middle of the Quidditch pitch, that Dean realized he'd missed Cas.

Dean held out his hand, made as if to shake hands with Castiel, but then he changed his mind. Acting on impulse, he put his hand on the back of Castiel's neck to keep him still. Castiel's eyes went wide with surprise, but before he could react Dean leaned forward and kissed him.

His heart drummed a tattoo in his chest as he kissed Castiel in front of the whole school. But Dean didn't care about everyone else. All he could think about was please, please tell me I didn't read this wrong, please don't push me away.

It was the five most terrifying seconds of his whole life, and that included the moment when Azazel had caught them in his office and the moment when he'd almost crashed on the ground trying to catch the snitch. The kiss was rather artless, just lips against lips, but Dean thought he'd never forget about it for as long as he lived.

When Dean pulled back, Castiel's eyes were still open wide, but he didn't seem about to draw his wand and curse Dean into oblivion. That was probably a good sign.

On the stands, Gabriel was losing it. "That how you do it, cousin! Whooop! Go get it! You make a lovely couple!" he managed to yell before one of the teachers managed to drag him away from the microphone.

Castiel blushed. "Er," he said.

"Er," echoed Dean. Then he belatedly remembered about the cup and about his housemates. "I think I've got to go now," he said, glancing towards the podium. "And there's probably going to be, er, some kind of party in the common room later..."

"Yes," Cas said. He tilted his head. "See you later?"

"I'll sneak out as soon as I can," Dean confirmed. "See you later," he said, and went to join the rest of his team. It was a good thing that the occasion called for it, because Dean couldn't stop grinning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it, folks. I'm sorry this is rather rushed, I originally wrote this for a fest and had deadlines to meet, hence why I had to rush through the final part of the plot.
> 
> I would like to write a sequel, since I have so many other ideas about this universe, but realistically it's not going to happen so I hope you liked the story anyway. Thank you for all the kind comments, they gave me strength.


End file.
